The Hard-Knocks Of ‘Repeatedly Not Wearing A Face Mask’
61-year old car washer sentence to one month is jail for wearing no mask!
by: Anita Nembhard-Flowers
Belize City, Belize
Fri. Jan. 22, 2021
Tonight 61-year-old Car Washer, Austin Godoy, a resident of Belize City was sentence to one month imprisonment for failure to wear a face mask when caught at the corner or Victoria Street and Barracks Road in Belize City
Mr. Godoy was unrepresented when he appeared before Senior Magistrate, Tricia Pitts-Anderson in Court #3 where he pleaded guilty to the charge of failure to wear a face mask.
Upon entering his guilty plea, Mr. Godoy begged the court for leniency asking for a fine and no jail time, saying, “I cannot handle being behind bars right now.”
But Senior Magistrate, Pitts-Anderson attention was drawn to the fact that Godoy has two previous convictions for two SOE and was in debt to the court in the sum of $3,345.00.
Senior Magistrate,
Pitts was not convince that if she imposed another fine upon Gotoy that he would be able to pay it since he has fail to pay his previous fines imposed so she sentence him to one month imprisonment effective today.
Since he was in debt to the court already, and order to pay $1,500 towards that old bill today, but in default of a payment, Mr. Godoy has to spend more prison time to clear off his old debts.
In 2020 he was charged with failure to provide reasons for being out during the curfew hours when Covid-19 had just hit Belize. He was fine $2,510.00 and he was also fined $205.00 for not wearing a mask back then. A total of $2,715.00 plus he had $635.00 for other criminal offenses prior to those two SOE offenses he never paid.
In total an additional 1 year and 2 months he will have to serve in default of his old fines.
In four days time, on Tuesday, -January 26, 2021, Austin Godoy will celebrate his 62nd birthday whilst serving time behind bars.
