Judge’s absence delays big MoBay cocaine case
Published:Saturday | May 13, 2023 | 1:02 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE LONGSTANDING trial of four businessmen, who are accused of being major players in a drug-smuggling and money-laundering scheme between Jamaica and the United States, was deferred to July 7 in the St James Parish Court yesterday, due to the absence of the trial judge.
The men, Montego Bay residents Robert Dunbar, Delroy Gayle and Louis Smith, and United States citizen Melford Daley, were given the new trial date and had their bails extended during their brief appearance in court.
Presiding parish Judge Kaysha Grant Pryce explained to the defendants that the trial judge in charge of their case, Sandria Wong-Small, was absent due to other commitments in the Supreme Court.
“The judge in this matter is now sitting in the Supreme Court and is unavoidably absent, so she has requested that all her matters be adjourned to July 7. Your bails are extended for you to return to court on July 7,” said Grant Pryce.
The allegations in the case are that Gayle, Dunbar, Smith, and Daley were involved in drug trafficking between Jamaica and the United States between 1999 and 2005. The men were arrested during a major police operation carried out by the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency in 2013.
The men are represented by attorneys Martyn Thomas, Hugh Wildman, Tom Tavares-Finson, and Oswest Senior-Smith.
Their trial had previously started before Judge Wong-Small, the parish judge for St James at the time, in September 2019. During that period, attorney Wildman made an application for the matter to be thrown out because the defendants were arrested and charged in 2013 under the Money Laundering Act, which was repealed in 2007 and replaced with the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Stay of trial
The Supreme Court granted a stay of the trial on September 19, 2019, which came into effect later that month after Christopher Drummond, a key prosecution witness currently serving a 27-year prison sentence in the United States for drug smuggling, gave evidence against the four defendants. During his testimony, which was done by way of video link, Drummond told the St James Parish Court that he had worked in a cocaine-trafficking operation with Dunbar and Gayle.
In February 2020, the Supreme Court’s presiding High Court Justice, Simone Wolfe-Reece, rejected an application made on Smith’s behalf by Wildman, in which the defendant sought a declaration from the court that the initiating of criminal proceedings against him was null, void, and of no effect. That decision paved the way for the resumption of the trial proceedings in the St James Parish Court.
On October 26, 2020, the men had their trial set to run from February 22 to March 5, 2021. However, to date, the trial has not resumed, with their most recent court appearance before yesterday’s sitting taking place on March 24 this year.