A 34-year-old con man who defrauded a Hurricane Fabian victim of more than $1,800 and used the money to buy heroin will spend two years in prison after admitting the crime.

But Kenneth Faries, who has a long list of previous convictions for fraud, told Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons: ?I guarantee you that I?ll be back before you again.?

Faries, who has no fixed abode and was denied legal aid, admitted in Supreme Court on Monday that on September 8 of last year he fraudulently accepted $1,861 from Jane Simmons who had hired him to fix her hurricane-damaged roof.

Believing that Faries was going to buy the materials necessary for the repairs, Mrs. Simmons gave him money and expected him to return to her house later that afternoon.

Faries, who had told Mrs. Simmons that his name was Kevin Moniz, did not return and later admitted to Police that he in fact had used the money to buy heroin.

Already fearing that she had been scammed, Mrs. Simmons? suspicions of Faries were further aroused when he called a few days later asking for money to buy an airline ticket for his sick father to travel to the US. This claim was false.

The Police were alerted and Faries was arrested on September 11 of last year.

But on September 13, while he was in the custody at the Hamilton Police Station, he ripped the sink off his cell wall, escaped through the resulting hole and then walked out the door of the Police Station.

The following day Faries turned himself in to Hamilton Police Station. When asked why he had broken out, Faries, who has been using heroin and cocaine since he was 16, told Police: ?I was suffering from withdrawals.?

Faries returned to this same argument on Monday as he defended his actions to Mrs. Justice Simmons, who was also presented with the defendant?s long list of frauds committed against private citizens, restaurants, taxi drivers, landlords, and guest houses

He said he needs guidance and structure to kick his drug habit which the ?negative? atmosphere of Westgate could not offer him. He called the prison drug programme ?a joke?.

Faries asked to be placed in the drug treatment programme, Camp Spirit. Taking this request into consideration along with the recommendations of a BARC report to place the defendant in a treatment programme, Mrs. Justice Simmons sentenced Faries to nine months for his escape and then gave him a 24-month sentence for unlawfully defrauding Mrs. Simmons under false pretences.

The two sentences are to be served concurrently and Mrs. Justice Simmons also ordered that Faries be enrolled in the Camp Spirit programme while he is imprisoned.

?You will have to dig a little deeper and help yourself,? Mrs. Justice Simmons said as she sentenced him.