Federal authorities in New York knew former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) major David Clarke was into drug trafficking since early 2005 – almost one year before he was indicted – according to court documents which revealed that his name came up repeatedly during court proceedings involving his wife and his brother.
On April 5, 2005 Leslyn Camacho, who was named as Clarke’s wife, Hubert Clarke called ‘Dun Dun’ and Hubert’s girlfriend Shelly McQune were among some 22 persons who were charged with conspiracy to traffic in narcotics from Guyana to New York when authorities busted a drug ring operated by Sherwin Lilly also known as ‘Nigel Chester’ and ‘Huey’.
While the case against Camacho was dismissed without prejudice by Justice Robert Levy the day after she was charged, during the proceedings before the judge it was revealed that she came under the radar of federal investigators after she was reportedly asked to do a favour by David Clarke who was in Guyana.
Clarke, who was sentenced to time served last December – he had been in prison since his surrender to authorities in New York after he learnt he was indicted – would have been the star witness in drug kingpin Roger Khan’s trial. But after Khan threw in the towel in March last year Clarke, who was still a serving member of the GDF when he was indicted, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced.
Camacho, who was named as Clarke’s girlfriend in Khan’s case, was the person who Khan’s former lawyer Robert Simels – now serving 14 years in prison – was found guilty of wanting to bribe so that she could lie on the witness stand. Simels had handed over US$1,000 to US informant Selwyn Vaughn to pay Camacho so as to convince her to tell lies on Clarke.
Frozen fish
The drug ring was busted in 2005 following the seizure of a large quantity of cocaine in a shipment of red snapper bound for New York City by Guyanese in authorities on May 15, 2004 which triggered an investigation by US authorities. Authorities had found more than 108 pounds (49 kilogrammes) of cocaine hidden in 60 boxes of red snapper, moments before they were loaded on a Universal Airlines flight at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
After being informed of the seizure, authorities obtained the airway bill concerning the frozen ship shipment and it indicated that it was bound for Eye & Eye Produce on Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn. When agents checked, there was a Chinese restaurant at the address and the owner said he knew nothing of Eye & Eye and did not purchase his fish from Guyana but rather from a wholesaler in New York. Agents continued their investigation which led to the fracture of the drug organisation.
The indictment named Lilly, who was sentenced to six years and seven months in prison on January 22, 2010 days after he decided to plead guilty, as the leader of the organisation which hid the cocaine in seemingly legitimate cargo or used airline passengers arriving from Guyana as cocaine couriers.
The indictment named Hubert Clarke, who has not been arrested since he fled to Guyana in 2004 after being granted bail on another drug trafficking charge, as one of the Guyana-based suppliers of cocaine to the organisation.
Hubert Clarke was charged along with Alex Mingo in 2004 and both of them were granted bail but he fled to Guyana and has since been placed on the fugitive list. He was again charged along with his brother David Clarke in 2006 but remained on the run. Mingo was convicted in 2006 and was sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison. He appealed the sentence but lost the appeal on April 16, 2008.
Camacho had paid the bail for Hubert back in 2004; she put up the home she owned jointly with her mother in New York as surety.
Cocaine in chowmein
Twenty-two people were arrested after a shipment of Chinese chowmein from Guyana containing cocaine was seized at the JFK airport. Authorities later told Lilly via phone that the shipment was seized because of insect infestation as a pretext.
According to the indictment on March 2, 2005, Lilly received a call from someone called “David” who informed him that 60 boxes of chowmein were expected and he gave him the registration number. Agents realized that cocaine was being shipped in the boxes and intercepted the shipment, which arrived on a North American Airlines flight, and found cocaine secreted in the boxes.
Authorities later informed one of Lilly’s associates that the shipment was seized because it was insect infested and they were asked to fax the documents over.
It was at that point that Camacho became a subject of the investigation as shortly afterwards Lilly placed a call to her number and asked her for the fax number at her work place — the United Nations office in New York. She gave him the fax number and he later called and asked her if she “got it” and she told him it was not clear as she only saw the information about items being destroyed and the fax number.
When the 22 appeared before Judge Levy, Camacho’s attorney Lawrence Gerzog and prosecutor Michael Ramos faced off in court about her alleged involvement in the drug organisation.
In his arguments, Gerzog pointed out that his client had only received a fax and that there was no evidence she had any knowledge that the shipment involved cocaine.
“…She is the sister-in-law of Hubert Clarke, another named defendant, who is apparently a fugitive residing in Guyana. She did sign his bond, but she signed his bond because it’s her brother-in-law and she was asked to do so by her husband,” Gerzog said in the transcript of the court proceedings seen by this newspaper.
Ramos had told the court that Camacho admitted to arresting agents that she received the fax for her husband, David Clarke, “who is the David described as the shipper of the chowmein, the man who asked her to sign the bond for Hubert Clarke, who is now a fugitive down in Guyana.
“Ms Camacho appeared before this court and claimed she could be a good suretor and ensure that Mr Hubert Clarke would return here, knowing well what the charges were against him, which were shipping cocaine hidden in a cargo shipment from Guyana, over a two-year period prior to the indictment that was returned last year.”
‘Mysteriously’
He pointed out that “fast forward to 2005” Hubert Clarke is now again charged with shipping cocaine from Guyana.
“Mysteriously, her husband David asks her to take care of cargo shipments from Guyana. David also asked her to take care of Mr Hubert Clarke’s bond in the past, when he was charged…,” Ramos said.
He had argued that at the very least the government could have proved conscious avoidance but he also thought that Camacho had an idea of what was going on and knew that her husband in Guyana was sending up cocaine to the US and she was facilitating and assisting it.
“As far as we know, she is unable to explain to the agents why her husband was shipping up chowmein noodles from Guyana to New York. We believe that Ms Camacho was a knowing member of this scheme and assisted her husband in making sure that Mr Lilly and others provided the requisite proof that this chowmein noodle shipment had been intercepted…,” Ramos said.
He said in her statements she said it was on behalf of her husband she was contacted, spoke to Lilly and obtained the faxes.
However, her lawyer stated that Camacho denied making the statements and pointed out that nothing tied her to the organisation. He said while she received the documents and the government believed she sent them to Guyana to her husband they had no evidence to prove this and he said even if she knew it was cocaine, receiving the fax and doing nothing else with it does not link her to any conspiracy.
On the other hand, the prosecution argued that Camacho received the fax so that she could have reported to her husband that the cocaine shipment was indeed lost although they could not prove she indeed had a conversation with him as there was no tap on her phone. Lilly’s phone was tapped and this facilitated the authorities listening to the conversation he had with Camacho.
“Ms Camacho is an employee at the UN, and the chowmein noodle shipment was not being sent to her, it was not requisitioned to her, it was not cosigned to her. We have no other reason to believe why she would have interest in a seizure of bug-filled chowmein noodles out of JFK Airport…” Ramos argued.
Her counsel countered that someone sent her a fax that she had not requested and he added that not even her alleged statements supported involvement in a cocaine conspiracy.
The prosecutor then told the court that Hubert Clarke and possibly David Clarke, who sold cocaine to Lilly, had used people they knew to confirm things in the US. He again stated that Hubert Clarke’s bail bond, which he absconded from was signed by Camacho.
“She put up a house that she owns with her mother, at the request of her husband,” Ramos argued. “If she starts getting things regarding shipments of chowmein noodles, knowing about Mr Clarke’s case and knowing about her husband, ex-husband’s connection to Mr Hubert Clarke there can be no other logical, I think, thought of why she’s getting involved in this chowmein noodle shipment.”
But Gerzog argued that Hubert was David’s brother and when he got arrested he called his wife and asked her to bail him as he had no relatives in the US.
“[She] wisely or unwisely, as a concession to [her husband], to be part of the family, to do something nice for her brother-in-law, signs the bond. It’s a shame that Mr Clarke absconded, but that’s not my client’s fault,” Gergoz had said.
He stated the fact that Hubert Clarke absconded did not put Camacho in a guilty position but rather it was a tremendous financial risk because she did something he was sure she wished then she had not done.
“If she was aware of all this drug goings on backwards and forwards—this is a woman who has no criminal record, who has had a steady job at the United Nations for 15 years, who lives with her mother and father in Brooklyn, who leads an upstanding, honest life,” the lawyer had stated.
On this background he questioned whether the court thought if she knew David Clarke was asking her to be part of a cocaine conspiracy she would have participated.
“It boggles the imagination. There would be no reason whatever for her to involve herself knowingly in such a conspiracy,” he had said.
But the prosecutor questioned why, being an employee of the UN, she would have been interested in a shipment of chowmein and he pointed out that she had no interest in someone arbitrarily calling her and informing her about the shipment.
Following the lengthy argument between the two lawyers, the judge granted Camacho bail and commented that the case was a very close one and that the prosecution had not presented probable cause. He dismissed the charge against her the following day.
Questions
When David Clarke was sentenced in December the outcome of the case left a host of questions about Khan’s and Clarke’s operations and linkages with the security forces and the Guyana government. At the time when Clarke was ensnared in the activities that led to the US charges he was also the army man in charge of a key security operation in Buxton.
And unlike so many others, such as Khan, against whom Clarke was expected to be the star witness had the matter gone to trial, the former army officer was not deported to Guyana as he and his wife and two children were granted leave to remain in that country with the only condition being that he must regularly report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
Stabroek News had been reliably informed that at the time Clarke learnt of his indictment in April 2006 he was attending the University of Guyana and upon being shown the indictment he immediately contacted the US Embassy in Guyana.
Sources said the upper echelons of the army had also received a copy of the indictment but kept it under wraps and Clarke was allowed to voluntarily leave the country and travel to the US where he surrendered.
It is believed that even though Khan had already been indicted by then, most of the information subsequently provided by the US government was availed by the former army officer. It was this that caused Simels, in one of the recorded conversations with Vaughn, to remark that the case against Khan depended heavily on Clarke.
That was the reason he went to the lengths of finding out the jail Clarke was in and attempting to speak to him. But Clarke rebuffed Simels’ attempts to speak to him. Simels then attempted, through Vaughn, to intimidate Clarke’s relatives and even bribe some of them.
