A Guyanese woman who was arrested at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York last year is to be sentenced in February 2017 and faces imprisonment of between 18 and 24 months after which she will be deported.
Shureen Giddings arrived at JFK Airport aboard an Overland Airways flight from Guyana via Jamaica. According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, Giddings was selected for screening. She later admitted to Customs and Border Patrol personnel that she had ingested pellets. The defendant subsequently passed 105 pellets with a gross weight of 1,390 grammes. One of the pellets field tested positive for cocaine. The documents said that a subsequent lab report calculated the amount of cocaine transported by Giddings to be 962.1 grammes.
On December 3, 2015, a grand jury in the Eastern District of New York returned an indictment charging the defendant with two counts: importation of 500 grammes or more of cocaine and with possession of that cocaine with intent to distribute.
The court documents said that on August 3, 2016, Giddings entered a guilty plea to the lesser-included charge of count one, the importation offence. The defendant’s plea arose out the promises of a written plea agreement.
In arguing for the 18 to 24 months jail term, the attorney for the US government said that Giddings abandoned her daughter and her place of birth to swallow the cocaine. The lawyer further said: “The sheer number of pellets is also remarkable.” He said that the physical act of swallowing the pellets would have taken a great deal of time and effort meaning that Giddings was well aware of what she was doing.
“Moreover, the sheer weight involved in the offence – more than three pounds – is on the high end for an internal courier of controlled substances,” the attorney said.
“For these reasons, the government objects to the defence’s request for a downward departure and asks the Court to impose a sentence within the applicable guidelines,” the attorney urged.
Giddings is to be sentenced on February 7, 2017 before Justice Marco K. Brodie.
