Former Biltmore employee found guilty of Manslaughter

A jury of five women and seven men deliberated for a little over four hours today before it unanimously found forty-five year old Hubert Bennett, a.k.a. “Yankee”, not guilty of Murder but guilty of Manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of eighteen year old Tiquan Emmanuel who was killed around midnight on August twentieth, 2005 in the vicinity of International Players Club, located on Electric Avenue. Justice Adolph Lucas has deferred sentencing until March second to give Bennett’s attorney, Michael Peyrefitte, time to prepare a plea for mitigation. Georgia Curry, the chief witness for the prosecution, testified that Bennett and Emmanuel got into an argument over a bicycle and Bennett grabbed Emmanuel from off the verandah of the club and took him into the yard near another building and stabbed him. Curry positively identified Bennett in the dock as the person she saw stab Emmanuel twice in his chest. Bennett gave a statement from the dock in which he denied that he knew Curry and he claimed that he was at home at the time when the incident occurred. The prosecution was represented by crown counsel Trinia Young. Bennett was a former employee of Biltmore Plaza Hotel.