Prince Agbeko, a 22-year-old Forklift Apprentice, was sentenced to a total of four years in prison with hard labor for stealing phones in three separate cases by the Ashaiman District Court.
Mrs Eleanor Kakra Banes Botchway, who presided over the court, sentenced Agbeko after he admitted to stealing in all three incidents.
For the first crime, the convict was sentenced to one year of hard labor; for the second case, he was sentenced to 15 months of hard labor; and for the third case, he was sentenced to two years of hard labor.
The prosecutor, Chief Inspector Samuel Aperweh, told the court that on August 24, 2021, plaintiff Mr Alex Edem Quarshie, a businessman from Ashaiman in Lebanon zone, filed a complaint against the convict from Zongo-Laka.
According to Chief Inspector Aperweh, Agbeko arrived at the complainant’s boutique with a motorbike and a wrapper pretending to be a customer who wanted to buy certain items for his Pastor as a birthday gift at approximately 1800 hours on the aforementioned day.
According to the prosecution, after the accused selected the items, he asked the complainant to assist him in wrapping them. While the complainant’s attention was focused on the wrapping, the accused took the complainant’s IPhone Xs max, valued at GH3,400.00, pretended to be on the phone, and then exited the boutique and bolted on the motorcycle.
After wrapping the things, the complainant stepped out to alert the convict that he was finished, but he was nowhere to be seen, prompting the complainant to return inside his boutique and discover his phone was missing.
According to Chief Inspector Aperweh, on September 9, 2021 at approximately 2100 hours, a complainant saw the accused in town on a motorbike parked near the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly, who attempted to flee after seeing him, but was apprehended and handed over to Community 22 Police Station officers with the help of others.
In his caution statement, he admitted to the crime and took police to the complainant’s shop, where he explained how he stole the phone.
He then led police to two separate mobile phone dealers as beneficiaries of the phone, according to the prosecution, but neither of them was at work.
He led authorities to a third person, Patrick Buemortey, a mobile phone repairer, who the felon named as the recipient of the stolen iPhone Xs Max.
Patrick Buemortey then produced an iPhone Xs, which was not the complainant’s phone, and claimed police that the accused had given it to him three months prior and offered it for sale.
Buemortey said he declined to buy it after learning that it belonged to someone else and that no one can use another person’s phone, but the convict insisted that it belonged to him and never returned.
Following an investigation, the accused was charged with stealing and brought before the court, where he was found guilty after a complete trial.
