17.05.2016

A gypsy taxi dared pull the car breakdown and the hitchhiker stunt

A woman appeared before the Saint-Martin criminal court on Thursday morning for involvement in armed robbery. She was sentenced to three years in prison with a possibility of parole after one year.

A woman picked up two hitchhikers between Marigot and Grand Case. She dropped them off in front of a store in Hope Estate and after setting off once again, her car broke down. While she was repairing it, the two hitchhikers asked her for another favor. They wanted to be dropped off in French Quarter. Which she did, once the car was fixed. There’s nothing special about the story of this 41-year old woman. But seen in the context of this day on May 7, 2015, the story is no longer so ordinary. The two hitchhikers were in fact armed robbers and the woman was their accomplice.

On Thursday before the Saint-Martin criminal court before which she, therefore, appeared for involvement in armed robbery, she tried to explain that the events that marked this part of her day were only incidental. But she convinced neither the prosecutor nor the court which sentenced her to three years in prison, with a possibility of parole after one year and requested the confiscation of her car.

THE HITCHHIKER STUNT

On Thursday, May 7, 2015, in the middle of the day, the woman left Cole Bay behind the wheel of her car. In Marigot, she picked up two men who, according to her, were hitchhiking. They asked her to drop them off in French Quarter. But in the meantime, she stopped to withdraw 50 euros from an ATM. Once in Hope Estate, they stopped again. At 2:03 pm, the woman entered a store with one of the two hitchhikers to buy some scratch-off lottery tickets and scratched them in the store. About twenty minutes later, the store was held up by the two men.

Two elements make the woman’s story hard to believe. The first is that she’s a taxi driver. Hence the questions of Deputy Prosecutor, Michaël Ohayon: "You’re a taxi driver and you stop to withdraw money during a fare? (…) then you go scratch lottery tickets with your customers when they asked you to take them to French Quarter?" The prosecutor has a hard time believing the story of the hitchhikers picked up by chance on the side of the road.

The second element which appears doubtful is the woman’s behavior inside the store. There, while she was scratching the lottery tickets, she often raised her head toward the ceiling. "I was looking at the Lottery numbers", she explained. For the investigators, she was watching the surveillance cameras installed on the ceiling. She was on the look out.

THE BREAKDOWN STUNT

Once she scratched her lottery tickets, the woman left the store as well as her two alleged customers. She headed for her car which was parked just in front, but it wouldn’t start. She managed to move forward a few meters by letting it glide. When parked further down the road, she tried to fix it. She got out and opened the hood; according to her, the problem was the battery.

In the meantime, her two former customers committed an armed robbery. With their faces masked and pointing a gun at the employee, they got the 429 euros which were in the cash register. They left the store and ran away. In this case, they headed towards the place where the taxi driver’s car was located, who assured before the court that she couldn’t see the store from where she was. In other words, it was a coincidence that the two men returned to her.

They asked her to take them to French Quarter. According to her explanations, they got in the backseat and waited for her to finish repairing the car. "They didn’t even come to help me", she pointed out to the judges. "When I saw them come towards me, they were running and there was a jeep behind them," she said. "I immediately thought that they had done something wrong but since the jeep passed us, I was reassured," she added.

The jeep certainly belonged to the two witnesses who were questioned by the gendarmes. According to the report, "The two witnesses saw the two men running, including one with a bandana on his head (Editor’s note: which matches the video surveillance images) and with a black cash box in his hand… Probably the cash drawer. They arrived at a car with a raised hood. There was a woman standing who appeared to be fixing it. The couple decided to follow the individuals. The woman drove and the man, on the passenger side, filmed the scene. They passed the taxi. Then, the driver saw the taxi head towards Grand Case".

A fact which the defendant confirmed. "I stopped at my house because I had to see my children," she said. An argument which once again doesn’t convince the prosecution.

Michaël Ohayon indeed finds it disturbing that a simple taxi driver could spend an hour of her time with two alleged customers who wanted to go from Marigot to Grand Case and allow herself to make detours for personal reasons.

However, the woman didn’t say if the two men had paid the fare once dropped off at Orient Bay and in Middle Region.

Finally, it should be noted that the defendant was an illegal taxi driver. She didn’t have a French driver’s license when she lives in St. Martin where she receives Family Allowance Fund (CAF) and Active Solidarity Income (RSA) benefits.

 

Estelle Gasnet