Youths Charged for Beating Up Elderly Man Near BTL Park

Justin Marin

Two Belize City youths were today fined five hundred dollars each after they both pled guilty for badly beating a sixty-four-year-old fisherman over the weekend. Today, twenty-year-old Justin Marin and nineteen-year-old Felipe Rodriguez appeared before Magistrate Deborah Rogers to answer to one count each of wounding. According to Lester Hernandez, on Sunday night, he was walking with his dog by B.T.L. Park on Newtown Barracks, when he was approached by two men—one hit him in the left eye, while the other punched him in his mouth. After he was badly beaten, the duo ran into a waiting vehicle and escaped.

Felipe Rodriguez

Hernandez managed to grab the attention of a police patrol that later detained Marin and Rodriguez. But in court, the duo said that they did beat the elderly man because they felt disrespected when they allegedly caught him defecating in the sea. Both men were unrepresented and wasted no time in pleading guilty to the offense of wounding. Magistrate Rogers told them that they should have reported the incident to the police and not take matters into their own hands. Both Marin and Rodriguez were fined five hundred dollars each, which they must pay by July fifteenth or in default spend five months in prison.