Self-confessed drug trafficker Barry Dataram was recently granted US$500,000 bail by Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom and he is now confined to home detention in the US.
According to court information seen by this newspaper, Dataram, who has been in plea negotiations with US authorities, had to submit his passport and he also has to submit to pretrial supervision and report to pretrial services as directed.
Dataram is facing a five-count indictment that accuses him of conspiring to import at least 150 kilogrammes of a substance containing cocaine, according to documents seen by this newspaper
Dataram was remanded to prison on January 27 by Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom when he made his first appearance. However, according to documents seen by this newspaper, the information contained in counts four and five is hidden, along with some information in the other counts. The indictment was sealed and ordered unsealed the same day Datram, a US citizen, attempted to enter the country.
The first allegation against him states that between February 2001 and December 2003, Dataram, who is also known as “Kevin,” “Ledge” and “Fat Man,” together with others, did knowingly and intentionally conspire to import five kilogrammes or more of a substance containing cocaine into the United States.
The second count has the same dates and accuses Dataram and others of knowingly and intentionally conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five kilogrammes or more of a substance containing cocaine.
The third count states that between April 2003 and June 2003 Dataram knowingly attempted to import another five or more kilogrammes of cocaine into the US.
The other two counts have been redacted from the indictment.
In October 2016, days after being handed over by the Suriname police to Guyanese law enforcement having been on the run, Dataram pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. The sentence was for attempting to defeat the administration of the law to avoid the consequences, forging a passport and leaving the country without presenting himself to an immigration officer.
Those three years were added to the five-year sentence, which had been handed down a month before, in September of 2016, in his absence, for drug possession. He was also fined $164 million. The two sentences were to be served consecutively.
From 2007 to 2010, Dataram had four provisional warrants issued for his arrest, for the purpose of extraditing him to the US for cocaine smuggling offences. He had fought each one successfully.
It is unclear why, knowing that he had outstanding arrest warrants in the US, he returned there.
