MONDAY, MAY 14: A Somerset man who unscrewed his electronic monitoring tag was jailed today.
Kawesi Wilson, 36, pleaded guilty to causing $25 of damage to the device.
The court heard Wilson was fitted with the device on April 15 as part of his probation for a burglary conviction.
Crown counsel Takiyah Burgess told the court the device was programmed to notify Bermuda Security Group if there were any violations.
Ms Burgess said: “At 6:05pm on April 19, a battery violation notification was received.
“Bermuda Security Group was unable to contact him and several attempts were made to notify the defendant.”
She told the court no further signals were received.
A search warrant was issued for a Scott’s Hill Road, Sandys home on April 30. Officers found a fiber optic strap belonging to the monitoring device was damaged and needed to be replaced.
On May 6, Wilson turned himself into the Hamilton Police Station where he admitted using a screwdriver to remove the tag.
Addressing the court, Wilson said his device had problems and had to be replaced. He said the battery wouldn’t fully charge and was “malfunctioning”. He added that after it was replaced, there were still problems.
Wilson said: “I felt it didn’t make sense for me to explain my case so I took it off and it went dead.”
But Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner said he didn’t believe the story.
Mr Warner revoked Wilson’s probation and implemented a nine-month prison sentence for breaking and entering. He alsogave Wilson 30 days in jail for damaging the device, to run consecutively to the burglary sentence, for a total of 10 months.