A Jamaican national who was caught lying by Customs about her immigration status won a surprising outcome at her sentencing hearing held Friday in District Court. The judge hearing the case granted a request by the defendant to return to the U.S. mainland.
Defendant Veron Venita Goulbourne pleaded guilty to making false statements to a U.S. agency on April 17, close to one year after she was arrested at Cyril E. King Airport. In the charging document, investigators said Goulbourne displayed a Florida driver’s license with a name she used as an alias.
Prosecutors also accused the defendant of telling a Customs and Border Protection officer she was born on St. Croix. “The statement and representation were false; she then and there knew she was born in Jamaica and the name on the driver’s license was an alias,” said a statement found in an April 14 criminal information.
Goulbourne was then detained, held in custody for more than a year, and released after pleading guilty to making false statements.
Further investigation showed that the April 2022 arrest was not her first offense for illegal entry. The first one on record appeared more than 20 years ago when Goulborne was arrested and charged in New Jersey with food stamp fraud.
For that offense, the defendant served a year and a day in jail and was ordered to repay $104,882.54. She was deported in April 1999, court documents said.
The government’s pre-sentencing memo pointed to how Goulbourne’s first offense compounded her problems with the second one. “In this case, the defendant was not only attempting to conceal her unlawful status, but also attempting to conceal her previous deportation, and further attempting to conceal her prior criminal conviction for an aggravated felony,” said Assistant Attorney General Adam Sleeper.
At Friday’s hearing, Chief District Judge Robert Molloy was told the defendant was apprehended on St. Thomas after making an illegal re-entry and traversing the continental United States for 13 years. But prosecutors conceded that during that time, there was no other criminal conduct on record.
U.S. Attorney Delia Smith asked the defendant to serve two months in jail and pay a $1,500 fine plus court fees. Molloy sentenced Goulbourne to the time already served in detention and ordered her to pay the fines and fees.
“Although this is not a serious crime that I have considered, it is a crime nonetheless,” the judge said.
He added it would now be up to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to deport the defendant again. Then defense attorney David Cattie posed a request: that his client be allowed to return to the U.S. mainland.
The judge looked stunned. “But I just sentenced her to time served. Under what jurisdiction do I have to authorize her to travel?” Molloy said.
Federal prosecutor Natasha Baker agreed. But Cattie argued that over the last 13 years, his client had pursued an education and established a career in the healthcare field.
But the judge relented, saying that until the fines and fees were paid — Goulborne agreed to pay them within 90 days — she remained under the court’s jurisdiction. Molloy then agreed to write an authorization letter to the federal probation office, granting the defendant 10 days to make the trip and return to St. Thomas.
