Former New York lawyer Robert Simels, who once represented convicted drug kingpin Shaheed Roger Khan, will begin serving his 14-year sentence for witness tampering in a Texas jail after his last ditch attempt to get bail pending an appeal was denied yesterday.
The New York Law Journal reported that Simels, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison last month by Justice John Gleeson, was on his way to Texas yesterday afternoon after his bail application was denied by a three-judge Second Circuit panel.
Following the denial Simels flew to Texas to begin serving his sentence at the Big Spring Correctional Institute, which is about 300 miles west of Dallas.
The former attorney had applied to the federal Bureau of Prisons to be assigned to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, Orange County, but this was denied.
Last month’s sentencing of Simels brought the curtains down on a case that had riveted the attention of the Guyanese public since the evidence presented in court had linked the Guyana government to drug trafficker Roger Khan.
A 12-member jury in a Brooklyn courtroom had returned a guilty verdict for Simels and his then associate Arianne Irving. However, Irving’s conviction was overturned by Judge Gleeson mere hours before she was expected to be sentenced with Simels.
The high-profile lawyer and his assistant were caught on tape plotting to silence witnesses against Khan. The verdict had followed two weeks of explosive testimony from witnesses including a professed member of Khan’s ‘Phantom Squad’, Selwyn Vaughn.
Vaughn’s testimony tied the government to Khan’s activities, which included ordering the murder of activist Ronald Waddell and others and implicated Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy as the government official who met Khan and facilitated the purchase of the spy equipment he used to carry out surveillance here. Ramsammy and the government have denied the allegations and the minister has dared his accusers to prove otherwise.
One of the charges Simels was found guilty of was plotting to “neturalise” former army major David Clarke, who was expected to be one of the main witnesses at Khan’s trial, as the two had trafficked in narcotics together. Clarke was freed last month after being sentenced to time served.