By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
A BULGARIAN contesting his one-year sentence for his role in a credit card scam will have his substantive hearing before the Court of Appeal in two weeks.
Kostadin Karchav, 38, and his lawyer Roger Gomez II appeared before Justices Abdulai Conteh, Neville Adderley and Jon Isaacs yesterday seeking a brief adjournment of the matter stemming from nine criminal charges which Karchav admitted when arraigned in February.
Mr Gomez explained that the request for the adjournment was due to his inability “to get a copy of the magistrate’s notes”.
“I’ve requested them but so far I have not been successful,” the lawyer said.
Justice Conteh told the lawyer that the court would make a copy available to him.
Karchav’s substantive appeal hearing against sentence is now scheduled for May 19.
Karchav, when arraigned before Magistrate Derence Rolle-Davis earlier in the year, pleaded guilty to two counts of unauthorised access to a computer with the intent to commit or facilitate an offence and seven counts of possession of forged documents.
Mr Rolle-Davis sentenced Karchav to concurrent one-year sentences on all nine charges and further ordered the $76,621 forfeited to the Crown in addition to a car that Karchav said he bought with some of the stolen money.
Karchav had been in the country since 2014 and relayed, to his countrymen, information about the models of the ATM machines he observed. His accomplices replied in kind with information on credit and debit cards which he uploaded to gift cards he had brought with him when he travelled to the Bahamas.
Central Detective Unit officers conducted surveillance on the home where Karchav was staying in Sea Breeze Estates on February 14.
The officers stopped Karchav when he pulled up to the home. When they searched his room, they found an assortment of gift cards with credit and debit card information on them and $76,621.
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