Jamaican Kingpin Pleads Guilty in New York
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Published: August 31, 2011


Christopher Coke, a Jamaican drug trafficker whose arrest last summer came after a monthlong manhunt that left scores dead in Kingston, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to racketeering conspiracy charges in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

U.S. Marshal's Service, via Associated Press

The guilty plea emerged during an hour of quiet dialogue between Mr. Coke and a federal judge, a proceeding that stood in sharp contrast to the violence generated last year as the Jamaican authorities searched for Mr. Coke, a neighborhood don, at the request of American prosecutors.

Mr. Coke, a short, balding man of 42, pleaded guilty to trafficking large quantities of marijuana and cocaine, as well as approving the stabbing of a marijuana dealer in New York. He faces a maximum sentence of 23 years in prison; the plea deal does not require him to cooperate or to testify on behalf of the government in any proceeding.

“I’m pleading guilty because I am,” he told Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr.

In seeking Mr. Coke’s extradition, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, charged that for more than a decade Mr. Coke had controlled an international drug ring from his stronghold of Tivoli Gardens in Kingston.

His organization often transported cocaine to Miami and New York, prosecutors said. A portion of the profits, they said, went to buy guns in the United States, which were shipped back to Mr. Coke, who wielded considerable political influence in Jamaica. His organization was so well armed that it “rendered the Tivoli Gardens area virtually off-limits to the local police,” prosecutors wrote in a recent court filing.

The extradition and prosecution of Mr. Coke’s father, a leader of the same criminal organization, had been sought by the United States, but he died in a mysterious fire in a Jamaican prison cell in 1992.

The manhunt for Christopher Coke last year led to more than 70 deaths; in some instances, the police executed unarmed men, according to relatives of victims. In the months before the Jamaican prime minister, Bruce Golding, acted on the extradition request, Jamaican leaders warned officials in the American Embassy that any move to arrest Mr. Coke could result in widespread violence or civil unrest because Mr. Coke was well fortified in Tivoli Gardens and had a measure of popular support, according to a review of secret State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.

His plea deal came together in recent days after prosecutors told Mr. Coke’s lawyers that various confidential informers were prepared to testify that Mr. Coke had been involved in five murders, one of Mr. Coke’s lawyers, Stephen H. Rosen, said. One witness was prepared to testify that Mr. Coke used a chain saw to kill someone who had stolen drugs from him, according to a filing.

Under the original indictment, Mr. Coke could have faced a life sentence if convicted.

Mr. Coke’s lawyers described him as a well-spoken man who had never cursed in their presence; they said he had approached his new life in federal custody, where he is held under unusually restrictive conditions, with stoicism. “He’s never been in bad spirits,” one of the lawyers, Frank A. Doddato, said. “Let’s just say he’s one of the last tough guys.”

Dressed in a blue smock and orange socks, Mr. Coke was one of the first in the courtroom to stand when Judge Patterson entered on Wednesday, and he was the last to sit down. During a lengthy hearing in which he was asked routine questions, like whether his lawyers had provided effective assistance and whether he had recently consumed drugs or alcohol, Mr. Coke remained perched attentively on the edge of his seat, answering each question carefully.

In giving a statement of his guilt, Mr. Coke remained vague as to the specific crimes he had committed. He said that “a person gave someone narcotics on my behalf, on my instructions,” without offering any further details other than the year, 2007.

Initially, Judge Patterson voiced skepticism that the vaguely described crimes to which Mr. Coke was pleading guilty met the standard for racketeering.

When Mr. Coke pleaded guilty to approving the stabbing of a marijuana dealer in the Bronx in 2007, Judge Patterson asked whether the person had sustained serious injury — a component of the charge. Mr. Coke said he believed the person was stabbed in the face.

“Was it something that required hospitalization or was it something he could go home and brag about?” the judge asked.

Mr. Coke said that he was in Jamaica at the time and did not know the details, but that he was sure it would have required medical attention. He did not offer the name of the person who was stabbed. Asked for details about the violence, Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bharara, refused to name the victim or the attacker.

Mr. Coke acknowledged involvement in the distribution of more than three tons of marijuana and more than 30 pounds of cocaine.

In addition to the confidential informers, prosecutors built the case using wiretaps the Jamaican authorities had been collecting since 2004, when they started eavesdropping on Mr. Coke’s cellphone conversations and on those of other members of his drug trafficking enterprise, according to a court filing.

Mr. Rosen said that some 50,000 conversations had been intercepted in the investigation. Of those, he said, “there was only one in which there was discussion of violence, and I can tell you it wasn’t murder.”

CONFESSED GANGSTER Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is facing a maximum 23 years behind bars following a guilty plea in the United States Southern District Court of New York yesterday. The 42-year-old pleaded guilty before US District judge Robert P. Patterson.

Coke, who was extradited to the US on June 24, 2010 to answer narco and firearm charges, will be sentenced on December 8 around 4 p.m.

Court documents released by a United States press office stated that the former Tivoli Gardens don confessed to racketeering conspiracy in the US and conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering.

Plea document

"The defendant hereby acknowledges that he has accepted this agreement and decided to plead guilty because he is in fact guilty," the plea document signed by Coke states.

It added that, "By entering this plea of guilty, the defendant waives any and all right to withdraw his plea or to attack his conviction either on direct appeal or collaterally, on the grounds that the government has failed to produce any discovery material."

On the racketeering-conspiracy charge, Coke faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a maximum term of five years' supervised release, and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the pecuniary gain from the offence.

On the conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering charge, he faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, a maximum term of one year of supervised release, and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the pecuniary gain.

The sentencing guidelines of the United States in federal cases show that Coke would have faced 262-372 months' imprisonment.

However, because the counts carry a combined statutory maximum of 276 months' imprisonment, the effective guidelines range is 262 to 276 months' imprisonment.

The sentencing court may also impose a fine ranging from US$25,000 to US$250,000.

Extradited after stand-off

Coke was extradited following a near one-year stand-off between the Bruce Golding-led government and the US. Then Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne refused to sign the authority to proceed against Coke, saying his constitutional rights were being breached.

Golding's JLP then engaged US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in a bid to lobby the US government on the matter.

However, under public pressure, Lightbourne signed the authority to proceed against Coke. That was to lead to a stand-off between men loyal to Coke and members of the security forces. A bloody battle in Tivoli led to the deaths of more than 70 people.

Coke went into hiding and was captured, allegedly disguised with a woman's wig, in the company of clergyman Al Miller. He waived his right to fight his extradition to the US and has been awaiting trial since.

Coke last week suffered a major setback when Patterson rejected his motion to suppress wiretap information.

In obtaining a grand-jury indictment against Coke in August 2009, the prosecutors focused on taped telephone conversations he reportedly had with co-conspirators based in the US.

The prosecutors claimed that in one telephone conversation on or about April 3, 2007, Coke spoke with three co-conspirators concerning firearms that were to be shipped from the US to Jamaica.

The prosecutors also claim that about April 11, 2007, Coke had a telephone conversation with another co-conspirator concerning the sale of marijuana in New York, while a May 8, 2007 recording had Coke discussing the distribution of firearms that had arrived in Jamaica.

However, Coke's lawyers argued that the wiretaps were shared with the US law-enforcement agencies illegally and that their use would be in breach of Coke's rights under the Fifth Amendment of the US constitution.

Patterson, however, ruled against Coke, saying he "falls far short of establishing that the conduct of US or Jamaican government officials violated his due-process rights".

Christopher 'Dudus' Coke tells US court: 'I'm pleading guilty because I am'
Drug kingpin faces up to 23 years in prison after admitting in US court to trafficking and violence



Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is escorted from Westchester county airport to a waiting vehicle in New York. Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AP
A Jamaican drug smuggler who unleashed a small war in Kingston last year in an attempt to avoid extradition to the US is facing more than 20 years in prison after pleading guilty in a New York court to trafficking and violence.

Christopher "Dudus" Coke, 42, who was once regarded by many Jamaicans as the most powerful man in their country, admitted trafficking more than three tonnes of marijuana and 30lb (14kg) of cocaine to the US, and to ordering the stabbing of a marijuana dealer in New York.

"I'm pleading guilty because I am," said Coke, who faces up to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced in December.

The plea, which saved Coke from the possibility of a life sentence, was welcomed by political leaders in Jamaica. Some will be relieved that it does not require him to reveal the powerful political ties that enabled him to run his drug trafficking empire unhindered from the Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood of the capital, Kingston, until the government finally bowed to US pressure last year and sent the police and army in to arrest him.

More than 70 people died in the ensuing battle, including some in summary execution-style killings by soldiers.

Coke reached the deal a week after a judge ruled that tapes of bugged phone conversations in which he discusses smuggling marijuana, cocaine and weapons could be played in court.

He would also have faced several witnesses who prosecutors said would testify that Coke ran a small and violent army, known as the Shower Posse because of its tactic of showering its enemies with bullets, to control the smuggling of drugs through Jamaica. Prosecutors said they would produce evidence that Coke personally killed several people, including cutting up a man with a chainsaw.

The prosecution said he was also personally responsible for other murders, shootings and beatings. "Because Coke's heavily armed soldiers patrolled the Tivoli Gardens community, it was largely closed to Jamaican law enforcement," prosecutors said in court papers.

"Coke's influence over his New York-based narcotics trafficking co-conspirators, from his base in Kingston, was fundamentally a function of his soldiers' involvement and reputation for violence and the fact that many family members of these US-based traffickers had stayed behind in Jamaica and were, therefore, vulnerable to threats and intimidation."

Peter Bunting, security minister for the opposition People's National party, told the Jamaica Gleaner that he was not surprised by Coke's plea.

"Once Mr Coke's request to reject wiretapping evidence into evidence was turned down by the court, there would have been little chance of him getting away as the evidence, coupled with that of the witness co-operation, has been so strong."

Before his conviction, months of speculation in Jamaica suggested Coke would seek to avoid a more substantial sentence by doing a deal with prosecutors that would prove highly embarrassing to the Jamaican government and some prominent politicians.

Tivoli Gardens is one of the neighbourhoods known as "garrisons" because they were built by one of Jamaica's two political parties during their rotations of power and could be relied on to deliver up the vote accordingly.

They also proved to be breeding grounds for criminal organisations that became key to the parties maintaining their grip on the vote.

Tivoli Gardens is the constituency of Jamaica's prime minister, Bruce Golding, who has denied links to Coke.

But the drug lord commanded considerable support in Tivoli Gardens by helping the poor send their children to school and buying food and clothes for hard-up families, and was regarded as a political force in delivering votes for Golding and his party.

The country's political and business leaders promised that the political links with organised crime and the dependence of the poor on the gangs would change after Coke was extradited, but residents of Tivoli Gardens have complained that they have seen few improvements in their circumstances.

Many remain loyal to Coke and the Jamaican press reported that many residents were shocked that he did not fight the case. Some noted that his mother's death last week may have had a bearing on his mental state.

In an editorial, the Jamaica Observer called on Coke to reveal all that he knew before he was sentenced so that the political system could finally be cleaned up.

"Between now and then, we hope that Mr Coke will 'sing like a bird', naming names and pointing fingers. In a small society such as ours, it is not possible for Mr Coke to have been able to run such a 'successful' organisation without the involvement of well-placed individuals in both the public and private sectors. Not to mention the beneficiaries of his nefarious activities," it said. "Among the 73 people who died by official count are people whose blood cries out for justice.

"Someone must account for the trauma suffered by this nation, particularly during the security forces' operation to flush out thugs from Tivoli Gardens, and for the severe battering that our national image and economy took internationally."

Rise and fall

Christopher "Dudus" Coke followed his father's footsteps into the drug trafficking business. But, unlike Lester Lloyd Coke, he lived long enough to be extradited to the US and convicted.

Coke, 42, grew up in relative privilege and was educated alongside the children of Jamaica's political elite.

After his father died in a mysterious prison fire while awaiting extradition to the US, Coke took over his notoriously violent "Shower Posse" gang.

In 2009, the US requested Coke's extradition. The government of prime minister Bruce Golding initially resisted. In May, 2010, the government finally issued a warrant for Coke's arrest, prompting a bloody battle between his supporters and the police and army in which more than 70 people were killed. Coke escaped but was arrested on 22 June. He was handed over to the US two days later.

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