Drug accused businessman Ghalee Khan yesterday pleaded guilty to three counts of drug trafficking before Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann in a New York court and is now slated to be sentenced on January 28th 2021 by Judge Sterling Johnson Jr.
According to a report on yesterday’s hearing seen by this newspaper, Khan was represented in the proceedings by Michael Kushner and all parties appeared virtually. It was found that the plea by Khan was made knowingly and voluntarily and was not coerced and as such the plea was accepted.
In 2008, Khan and Danvor Griffith were jointly charged with drug trafficking and Khan was granted US$200,000 bail and later skipped the country to Guyana.
An arrest warrant was subsequently issued for him after he failed to appear in a New York court. Over the past ten years, Khan established business interests here, ranging from a clothing store to a security firm. Up the week of March 2nd, he was present at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Command Centre as a Private Sector Commission (PSC) election observer. He left for the US a few days later.
Khan and Griffith were both busted on November 3rd, 2008, after a cocaine drop was allegedly made at a New York location. The two were reportedly track-ed after leaving Guyana but were allowed to make the drop at the New York location where they were eventually picked up by federal agents.
From Guyana, Khan had sought to fight his charges through his lawyers and had filed a motion to have his drug trafficking case dismissed on speedy trial grounds but Justice Jack B Weinstein, a Senior United States District Judge, on November 1, 2017, had denied the motion.
The judge in the ruling had pointed out that Khan did not appear at the October 26, 2017 hearing in contravention of the court’s requiring his appearance.
“The United States Government ‘offered to assist the defendant in traveling to the United States’ for the hearing but the defendant declined,” the judge noted in the ruling.
In dismissing the motion, the judge pointed out that according to cited authorities, a fugitive “from justice may not seek relief from the judicial system whose authority he or she evades.” It was pointed out that persons abroad may be determined to be fugitives when they refuse to return to the US to face a criminal indictment.
