Reggae star Buju Banton trial kicked off on Monday, a day after the artiste won his first Grammy awards.
On the first day DEA agent Dan McCaffrey took the stand to testify against Banton. McCaffrey told the court that Banton was instrumental in setting up the drug deal, however, none of the $135,000 seized belonged to Banton. Two buyers from Georgia name Tyke and Ike was also named in the case.
In his testimony, McCaffrey said that the DEA’s policy is that the agent wouldn’t tell a prospective drug dealer that they were going to show drugs because it could put the undercover agent at risk.
In his opening statement, Prosecutor James Preston, Buju Banton (real name Mark Myrie) willfully entered the plan to expand his existing drug trafficking network.
Buju Banton lead attorney, David Markus, in his opening statement listed 10 reasons why Banton was not guilty. Markus stressed that Buju did not get a dollar or any reward from the deal; never spoke with James Mack nor heard of him before; that he never spoke with Ike and Tyke and never went to the warehouse on December 8, 2009 to see drugs.
David Markus also painted the government informant as a con artist, who did everything to set his client up.
Being an informant has earned Alexander Johnson, the man who appears to have bombarded Buju Banton, for months in order to get him to enter into a cocaine deal, has made more money handing over drug barons to US law enforcement than he ever did during the decade he was a drug dealer.
Johnson, a Colombian who was in 1993 convicted of attempting to smuggle 700 kilograms of cocaine into the United States has earned over US$3.3 million since he became an informant in 1996.
But he has been made out in court to be a desperate man who has had to file for bankruptcy and who has not been paying his taxes.
Just last week Johnson amended a bankruptcy plan to pay debtors he admitted in court under cross-examination from Buju’s attorney David Oscar Markus.
Johnson also admitted that the IRS says he owes approximately $200,000 in taxes and that the agency had told the DEA to pay moneies he earned over to it rather than to the informant. He said the levy was lifted on July 2010, which is days before he received over $50,000 for his cooperation on the Buju case.
As an information Johnson says he is paid between 15-20 per cent of money recovered in drug deals. He received approximately 40 per cent in Buju’s case.
In 2010 he made $117,000 for helping drug enforcement bring down barons.
Buju is facing charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm during the course of a drug trafficking crime, attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and using a communication facility in the commission of an act constituting a felony.
