HAITIAN DRUG LORD LIKELY TO GET BIG SENTENCE CUT FROM MIAMI FEDERAL JUDGE
(Miami Herald) - By Jay Weaver
A Haitian drug lord could see his term slashed by as much as half because he provided U.S. prosecutors with invaluable information on drug operations and bribes in the island nation.
Haiti’s most notorious drug lord, Beaudoin “Jacques” Ketant, will likely receive a huge cut in his 27-year U.S. prison sentence at a Miami federal court hearing Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors plan to recommend the reduction to U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno because of Ketant’s “substantial assistance in the prosecution of other persons who have committed offenses.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynn Kirkpatrick, who prosecuted dozens of Haitian narco-traffickers, police officers and politicians in the aftermath of Ketant’s expulsion from Haiti in 2003, said in a court filing she will provide “further detail” of the government’s recommended reduction at the hearing.
Sources familiar with the case said Ketant could see his term slashed by as much as half — meaning he could be released in a matter of years — because he provided invaluable information on drug operations and bribes.
Ketant, 48, had lived as a virtually untouchable kingpin in a hilltop mansion overlooking Port-au-Prince until Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide expelled him under U.S. pressure. That extraordinary move allowed federal authorities to put Ketant on a plane for Miami and charge him with conspiring to import 30 tons of cocaine into South Florida, New York and other locations, going as far back as the ‘90s.
He pleaded guilty in 2003. In addition to the prison term, Moreno ordered him to pay $30 million in fines and forfeitures.
During the past decade, about 50 defendants, primarily Haitians, were convicted on drug-smuggling or money-laundering charges, with Ketant’s information responsible for about one-third of those convictions.
His attorneys, Ruben Oliva and Paul Petruzzi, declined to comment, citing “security” reasons.
Ketant grabbed center stage in the government’s drug-trafficking investigation in the days leading up to Aristide’s sudden departure as president in February 2004.
At his sentencing that month in Miami federal court, the flamboyant Ketant made a stunning allegation: He could not have directed his drug-smuggling network without paying millions in bribes to his friend Aristide. Ketant accused the president of turning Haiti into a “narco-country.”
Aristide’s attorney, Ira Kurzban, has repeatedly denied the allegation.
The feds focused for years on Ketant’s allegation of paying off Aristide, but agents struggled to uncover any evidence such as financial records to prove it, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the case.
Last year, Aristide emerged from exile in South Africa and returned to Haiti.
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