Jamaican Drug Lord Sentenced to 23 Years in Prison
by BENJAMIN WEISER, nytimes.comJune 8th 2012
Christopher M. Coke, the Jamaican drug lord whose extradition to the United States in 2010 followed a furious manhunt that led to the deaths of more than 70 people in Jamaica, was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Friday by a federal judge in Manhattan.
Mr. Coke, 43, pleaded guilty in August to racketeering conspiracy charges, admitting that he led a narcotics trafficking organization that included upward of 200 soldiers, which distributed crack cocaine and other drugs in Jamaica and also in New York.
Prosecutors had said that Mr. Coke, who ran his group from his headquarters in Tivoli Gardens, a garrison community in Kingston, Jamaica, was so powerful that he enjoyed "virtual immunity from the reach of law enforcement."
"Coke assumed the role of judge, jury and at times, executioner," the United States attorney's office in Manhattan wrote to Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr. in a memorandum this week.
At a hearing last month, a former member of his gang, Jermaine Cohen, who has been cooperating with the authorities, testified about a half-dozen cases in which Mr. Coke had disappeared into a cement "jail" that he ran and used a power saw, hatchet or gun to butcher and kill people who owed him money or had stolen from his group.
Under terms of his plea deal with the government, Mr. Coke faced a maximum sentence of 23 years. The lowest term recommended under the advisory federal sentencing guidelines was just 14 months less.
Original Page: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/nyregion/christopher-coke-jamaican-drug-lord-is-sentenced.html
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