-so ‘I can work to support my family’
Money launderer Sabrina Budhram, who earlier this year began serving her year-and-a-day sentence, is asking Judge Edward Korman to place her in a halfway house for the remainder of her sentence so that “I can work to support my family.”
In a handwritten letter, seen by this newspaper, and sent to the judge from her jail cell, Budhram also told the judge that since she started serving her time on March 23 she has not been “designated.”
“Also since my arrest on April 6, 2004 all my personal documents were confiscated and my family’s properties were held on a lien for my release on bond. In light of this, I am requesting that your honor recommend that these be released to my family since I am already in custody,” Budhram also said in her letter.
Budhram and her husband Arnold, who was sentenced to three years probation last October, had pleaded guilty to the money laundering charge in the New York court.
While Sabrina had admitted to collecting large sums of money from drug traffickers, her husband said he deposited it into bank accounts in small sums to avoid filing currency transaction reports (CTR) that help detect money laundering.
Court documents stated that a handwritten “money and drug ledger,” found in the Budhrams’ home at the time of their arrest, referred to individuals who are believed to be convicted drug kingpin Roger Khan’s co-conspirators.
The prosecution had told the court that bank records indicated that in 2001 a company associated with the Budhrams transferred money to a bank account in the name of Khan’s relatives and it appeared that Khan was in direct contact with the Budhrams in early 2003.
The Budhrams were arrested and charged with money laundering on April 6, 2004 and investigators searched their home and work offices and gathered a large amount of evidential material. They were granted US$5 million bail each and were placed under electronic monitoring and were not allowed to leave their home without permission except to go to work.
The prosecution had revealed how bank vice-president Arnold Budhram and radiology technician Sabrina Budhram used a company they had set up and their connections to launder money for drug traffickers operating in Guyana.
Sabrina Budhram is the sister of Peter Morgan, who is now awaiting sentencing in New York after pleading guilty to conspiracy to traffic in narcotics. He was extradited from Trinidad and charged in the US. Records showed that in at least one case the couple transferred funds in his name.
