Race car driver Peter Morgan was this afternoon sentenced to ten years in jail by a Brooklyn Federal Court on a drug trafficking charge but could be out in six years based on the period he has already been incarcerated.
Morgan’s sentence in New York is one of a series in recent months of Guyanese headlined by drug kingpin Roger Khan who was sentenced to 15 years in jail last year.
Morgan had pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to import drugs into the US. His sentencing was delayed on several occasions, a sign sources say that there was a plea deal.
The businessman was facing a three-count indictment which accused him of conspiring to import, possess and distribute five kilogrammes of cocaine between December 2001 and August 2003.
He was nabbed in March 2007 in Trinidad by Trinidadian and US authorities while he was in-transit at Piarco International Airport. He was extradited to the US on August 23, 2007, after he withdrew a last-ditch appeal he had made in the Port-of-Spain Appellate Court. Morgan had initially attempted to have the extradition order made by Trinidad Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls on April 30, 2007, reversed. His lawyers had appealed but this was dismissed in the High Court and then a new appeal was filed.
According to one of the charges Morgan faced, some time between October 1, 2001 and August 31, 2003, he knowingly and intentionally conspired with David Narine, Susan Narine, Hung-Fung Mar and other persons unknown, to traffic in cocaine by importation. The second charge, which he did not plead to, alleged that some time between December 1, 2001 and August 31, 2003, he trafficked in cocaine by importation.
(More later)
