Calvin Lauriano and Marlon Chaneck, Guilty of Drug Trafficking

Magistrate Deborah Rogers today found thirty-nine year old Calvin Lauriano and one of his passengers, Marlon Chaneck, a resident of Santa Elena, Cayo, guilty of drug trafficking. On June seventeenth, 2015, police at a checkpoint found the two men, who were along with two women, in possession of one hundred and forty-eight pounds of marijuana in two separate suitcases. Both men pointed fingers at each other during trial as to who was responsible for the marijuana.  Lauriano, the driver, pointed the finger at Chaneck, whom he said brought the suitcases into the vehicle. Chaneck meanwhile claimed he was sitting in the back seat when he was in fact up front next to Lauriano. But Magistrate Rogers said she believed neither of them. Each man was sentenced to three years in prison and fined ten thousand dollars. The fine is due in a year’s time. Otherwise, each man will serve an additional three years in prison. Twenty year old Eve Beeks and twenty-one year old Dawn Parchue were released from their charges on August eighteenth when the Magistrate found that they had no case to answer. Senior Counsel Ellis Arnold had argued that neither woman had any knowledge of the marijuana. The court ordered that the red Jeep Cherokee in which the group were travelling when the police made the bust be forfeited to the Government of Belize.