Convicted Guyanese businessman Ghalee Khan was recently sentenced to just over nine years in prison by New York court Judge, Sterling Johnson Jr for drug trafficking and jumping bail.
Khan, who through his lawyer Michael P. Kushner, Esq has since filed an appeal against the sentence, had pleaded guilty after returning voluntarily to the US last year March, years after he had fled that country following his release from prison bail.
He received the bulk of his sentence, 72 months (equivalent to 6 years) for skipping bail while he received 37 months (3 years one month) on two counts of drug trafficking. The judge ordered that the latter two sentences run currently meaning Khan would only serve 37 months. The judge made it clear though that the six-year sentence is to run consecutively from that of the three-year sentence, hence Khan will have to spend nine years in prison.
According to count six of the indictment, Khan having been granted bail on December 8th 2008 failed to appear before the court as was required according to the condition governing his release. The maximum sentence for that crime is 15 years in in prison.
Count one of the indictment stated that on or about and between November 1 and 2nd 2008 Khan along with co-accused Danvor Griffith conspired with others to import five kilogrammes of cocaine into the US. During the same period they conspired to distribute the said cocaine in the US.
The other counts, 2, 4 and 5 which all dealt with the same amount of cocaine, were dismissed by the court as per request from the government.
It was in November 2008, Khan and Griffith were jointly charged with drug trafficking and Khan was granted US$200,000 bail. He later skipped the country to Guyana.
An arrest warrant was subsequently issued for him after he failed to appear in a New York court. In the ten years he was here as a fugitive from US justice, Khan established business interests ranging from a clothing store to a security firm. Up the week of March 2nd 2020, 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 tracked 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.
