A Guyanese man, Rajendra Ramrattan was on Wednesday sentenced to time served after being held at the JFK Airport in New York on April 6th this year with 550.7 grammes of cocaine in a pair of jeans.
According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, Judge Jack B. Weinstein sentenced Ramrattan to time served, effectively meaning that he spent just over three months in jail. He had pleaded guilty on June 15 to count one of a two-count indictment charging him with importation of cocaine.
Both the defence and prosecution had recommended to the judge that he be sentenced to a period below the customary sentencing guidelines for such an offence. Ramrattan was considered a first offender and both the prosecution and the defence took into consideration that he would be deported and thereby unable to return to the US.
Michael Weil, Ramrattan’s lawyer, in his submission to the judge on July 25th said that Ramrattan had worked in family businesses all of his life and “at a moment of weakness after his mother’s restaurant in Trinidad failed, he agreed to import drugs to the United States for money”.
Weil said that Ramrattan faces certain deportation “a consequence that will meet many of the purposes of Section 3553, including punishment, incapacitation and both general and specific deterrence”. He added that deportation would be a significant punishment as a close relative of Ramrattan recently moved to Queens and he won’t be able to visit in the future.
The prosecutor in the case, Robert L. Capers in his submission to the judge on July 26 said the government calculated that Ramrattan should face incarceration of between 18 to 24 months but that the government would not oppose a below-guidelines sentence given the defendant’s immediate acceptance of responsibility and his presumed deportation which would impose significant hardship.
Capers in detailing the case, said that subsequent to his arrest on April 6th, Ramrattan admitted that he knew he was bringing narcotics into the US and that he had anticipated selling the narcotics himself once in the US. At a subsequent safety-valve proffer, Capers said that Ramrattan recanted his previous testimony and told US agents that an acquaintance had told him that he would be paid US$5,000 to bring half a kilogramme of cocaine into the United States. Capers said that during the proffer Ramrattan provided a complete and truthful account of his conduct.
Ramrattan had arrived at JFK Airport on Caribbean Airlines flight 524 from Trinidad. He had travelled to Trinidad from Guyana.
The court documents said that Ramrattan was selected for an enforcement examination and in his suitcase, Customs and Border Protection officers found four plastic bags with a white substance in jeans in his suitcase.
The substance field tested positive for cocaine.
