Belize City resident Allyson Major has started a private lawsuit against the Government of Belize and the police department claiming wrongful imprisonment in April of 2012.
Readers may remember Major’s case, he was one of 7 people who were charged when police found unlicensed weapons in a house on Peter Seco Street.
Days before, Armead Logan-Thurton reported to police that someone had broken into her Baker’s Ranch warehouse and stole a double-barrel shotgun and a lawn mower.
This led police to act on intelligence that illegal items were at the Peter Seco Street house, and that’s why they searched the house.
Present at the time were Kent Lynch, Errol Lynch, Woodrow Reyes Jr., Leroy Gomez, and Virginie Alvarez. After a thorough search, police ended up finding the stolen shotgun, the stolen lawn mower, another unlicensed 16-gauge shotgun, and 2 cartridges. Those present were arrested and charged with 2 counts of keeping unlicensed firearms, 2 counts of handling stolen goods, and one count of keeping unlicensed ammunition. The owner of the house, Yvette Lynch, was not present at the time, but because she was the head of the household, she was picked up, arrested, and charged also.
Allyson Major, who had a visiting relationship with Yvette Lynch, also wasn’t at the house at the time of the search, but because police received intelligence that he resided there, he was also charged jointly with the other 6 defendants.
Yvette Lynch’s son, Ken Lynch pleaded guilty at the time of the arraignment for all of the illegal items, and was sentenced to 6 years in jail. Eventually, the other defendants, except Allyson Major were released after the charges against them were withdrawn. That only happened after they were remanded to prison at the initial arraignment.
Major had to apply to court after being arraigned, and he claims that police deprived him of his freedom for 38 days. He also had to fight his case in a full trial, and he contends that if the police didn’t use the law in the way they did, he wouldn’t have had to endure the ordeal of having to defend himself.
His attorney is Anthony Sylvestre, has taken out a lawsuit suing for unlawful imprisonment and an award of damages. He gets his first hearing before Justice Michelle Arana on October 30.
