Kimmesha Hutchinson due to stand trial over $480,000 marijuana seizure

A 30-year-old Antiguan woman named Kimmesha Hutchinson is scheduled to appear before the High Court today to face formal trial proceedings tied to a major 2023 narcotics seizure at Deep Water Harbour. Law enforcement first launched their investigation after customs and narcotics units flagged a shipping barrel that had been consigned directly to Hutchinson, which had been imported into the twin-island nation from an undisclosed international origin. The haul of cannabis recovered from the sealed barrel totals 80 pounds, a quantity local authorities estimate carries a street market value of approximately $480,000. Court documentation shows Hutchinson had just returned to Antigua from a trip to the United States when she traveled to the port on April 26, 2023, to complete customs clearance and retrieve the shipment. After the marijuana was uncovered during a routine secondary inspection, police secured a formal judicial search warrant to examine Hutchinson’s private residence on Old Parham Road, escorting her to the property the following morning to execute the order. At roughly 10:30 a.m. that day, officers conducting the search spotted a black laptop bag resting on the upper shelf of a bedroom closet. Upon inspecting the bag, investigators found a sealed Amazon delivery parcel holding a fine white powder field-tested to be suspected cocaine. That second narcotics seizure weighed in at 2 pounds, with an estimated street value of $31,000. Hutchinson was served three additional separate criminal counts related to the cocaine find: unlawful possession of a controlled substance, participation in the supply chain for cocaine, and possession of the drug with documented intent to transfer it to third parties. She has entered a formal not-guilty plea to all three cocaine-related charges, in addition to contesting the original counts tied to the port marijuana seizure. As of the latest public updates, no official court records have been released clarifying the procedural status of the separate cocaine-related case ahead of today’s scheduled marijuana trial proceedings.