- Commissioner of Police filed appeal of Roberts’ sentence in October 2019
- Appeal hearing in OECS Court of Appeal set for April 2022
- Roberts pleaded guilty to illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place in 2021
- Faces maximum sentence of 30 years in prison
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) has confirmed that the appeal against the sentence of Trevorson Roberts is alive and well in the regional court system.
In October 2019, the Commissioner of Police filed an appeal of the sentence handed down to Roberts who was charged summarily and pleaded guilty in the Grenville Magistrate Court, to one count of Indecent Assault. The offence was committed against a 5-year-old male minor.
Roberts was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,500 to the State of Grenada and $600 to the family of the child as compensation for medical expenses. The maximum sentence for the charge of indecent assault in the magistrate court is 5 years imprisonment. There was an outcry from the public for a tougher sentence. The Commissioner, in whose name the indecent assault case against was brought, acting on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, appealed the leniency of the sentence. This is one of the rare occasions when the State appeals a decision by the Magistrate Court.
However, on 13 December 2021, a news release on the website of the US Justice Department said that Treverson Roberts, 27, of Brooklyn, a dual citizen of the United States and Grenada pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a US nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
The appeal hearing in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Court of Appeal is set for Monday, 4 April 2022.
