(Jamaica Observer) When reputed Jamaican drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ coke pleaded guilty last month to reduced charges in a New York court, speculation was rife that he would call names.
On Wednesday, Coke’s legal team insisted that he had not, and did not intend to co-operate with US prosecutors.
The speculation, according to Coke’s legal team, is putting the “innocent” lives of the family members of the former Tivoli Gardens don at risk.
“He is not co-operating,” Stephen H Rosen, Coke’s Florida-based attorney, told the Observer in an interview.
A few hours later Rosen, through Priya Levers, the legal consultant to Coke’s local legal team, would elaborate on the matter: “I can assure you that Mr Coke has no intention whatsoever of calling any names. Certainly those are my instructions and those of Mr Rosen,” said Levers.
The attempt to set the record straight came on a day that was dominated by news that Coke had written to Judge Robert P Patterson Jr asking for leniency ahead of his December 8 sentencing.
In his seven-page, hand written letter that was released to the media on Tuesday, Coke asked Patterson to use his discretion to sentence him “below the guideline range”.
The 42-year-old Coke, who had been on a list of the world’s most dangerous drug traffickers, on August 31 pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering and faces a maximum prison sentence of 23 years.
“Good day to you, Sir. I am humbly asking if you could be lenient on me…,” Coke said in the letter to Patterson.
Coke listed 13 reasons the judge should be lenient, including the recent loss of his mother, who had bemoaned his incarceration.
