Gospel singer wanted for robbery claims he’s innocent

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Gospel artiste Jovon Les-Pierre, known as Jovi Ton, claims he is in­no­cent and was “set up” af­ter tak­ing what he de­scribed as a rou­tine hire taxi job to Wood­brook.

Les-Pierre, who is now want­ed by po­lice, con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia to give his ac­count af­ter po­lice linked him to the armed rob­bery at Spill Restau­rant in Wood­brook around 2.40 am on Feb­ru­ary 24.

Guardian Me­dia does not know and, at the time of the in­ter­view, was not aware of Les-Pierre’s lo­ca­tion and had on­ly re­ceived his ac­count re­mote­ly.

He said he on­ly re­alised some­thing was wrong when three Venezue­lan men re­turned to the car af­ter en­ter­ing the busi­ness, point­ed a gun at his head and or­dered him to dri­ve.

He said he crashed the rent­ed ve­hi­cle while he pan­icked with the gun to his head, as he tried to flee.

Les-Pierre said he did not sur­ren­der af­ter the crash be­cause he feared po­lice would kill him.

He said he is bad­ly in­jured and is now de­cid­ing his next move while try­ing to se­cure a lawyer. He added that of­fi­cers are “out for blood” and he feared he could end up like Joshua Sama­roo, who was shot dead by po­lice ear­li­er this year while his com­mon-law wife Ka­ia Sealy was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in the same in­ci­dent.

Les-Pierre said he sells per­fume and cologne and of­ten rents ve­hi­cles while mov­ing around for busi­ness.

He said three Span­ish-speak­ing men ap­proached him for trans­porta­tion that night and asked to be tak­en to Wood­brook.

“The Span­ish was look­ing so nor­mal when they said they want­ed a taxi for hire. I do take my hire work in be­tween be­cause I’m dri­ving. I hus­tling my per­fume and thing so in be­tween, so if I get a hire work from any­one or some­body might want to reach some­where, I would take a hire work,” he ex­plained.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said three armed men en­tered the restau­rant as staff were clos­ing. Two em­ploy­ees were as­sault­ed and robbed of their phones — an iPhone 13 and a Sam­sung A15. One work­er was struck on the head with a gun.

Po­lice said the sus­pects al­so took the restau­rant’s cash reg­is­ter. A shot was fired in­to the ceil­ing be­fore they fled.

Of­fi­cers said the men es­caped in a black Hon­da City.

Hours lat­er, the ve­hi­cle was found crashed near the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Po­lice said the oc­cu­pants fled the scene.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors lat­er traced the car to a rental com­pa­ny. Records showed it had been rent­ed to Les-Pierre.

But Les-Pierre said he had no knowl­edge that a rob­bery would take place.

“It is com­mon sense. The car rent­ed in my name. They have my IDs, the num­ber plate on the car, every­thing. I would have to be dotish to go on a rob­bery when every­thing go­ing to lead back to me,” he said.

“When they come back, they run in the car and start to tell me ‘dri­ve.’”

He said one of the men point­ed a gun at his head.

“The man pull the gun and tell me ‘dri­ve boy, dri­ve boy… poli­cia, poli­cia,’” he said.

“I start­ed to think. ‘These men are go­ing to shoot me in my head,’ be­cause I stopped the car to jump out of the car. And he pulled the gun. He told me, ‘dri­ve, boy, dri­ve, dri­ve, dri­ve’ and the car just come and crash.”

Les-Pierre said two ve­hi­cles were be­hind them.

“I thought it was po­lice,” he said.

“Af­ter when the car crash and I run out­side I see the two cars across the road and re­alise it wasn’t po­lice.”

Les-Pierre said he was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in the crash and ran in­to near­by bush­es near La­dy Young Road and Cir­cu­lar Road.

“My knee come out of place. My shoul­der dis­lo­cate. My arm mash up.”

He said he re­mained there for hours.

“I lie down in a bush for about four hours bleed­ing out,” he said.

Les-Pierre said he feared sur­ren­der­ing.

“Let’s be re­al. If I had come and play I was to sur­ren­der be­cause I know I’m not a part of that, the po­lice is go­ing to kill me. They killed that boy and tried to kill his wife just weeks ago. Who is me when my sit­u­a­tion dif­fer­ent. They were lucky cam­eras picked it up. But I was in the bush scared to trust them, even I know there is proof I am in­no­cent and was set up.

“The po­lice is go­ing to kill me, Ms Gon­za­les,” Les-Pierre re­peat­ed­ly told Guardian Me­dia.

He said the shoot­ing of Sama­roo in­flu­enced his de­ci­sion.

Les-Pierre said he is re­cov­er­ing and try­ing to get le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“Peo­ple say­ing I run­ning. I not run­ning. I heal­ing right now and try­ing to or­gan­ise mon­ey for a lawyer so I could face this prop­er­ly,” he said.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the rob­bery are con­tin­u­ing, and of­fi­cers are still search­ing for the sus­pects.

Les-Pierre was a Trini­bad artiste who turned to Chris­tian­i­ty in 2023.