ACCUSED Jamaican drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke yesterday pleaded guilty in a New York court to conspiracy charges in a plea agreement that will result in him getting reduced jail time when he is sentenced on December 8.

The 42-year-old Coke, who had been on a list of the world’s most dangerous drug traffickers, pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering.

As a result of the plea agreement, Coke will not be prosecuted on the gun and c ocaine-running charges for which he was extradited from Jamaica to the United States last year June, a month after a bloody uprising by gunmen to thwart his arrest. Some 73 people, including members of the military and police force, were killed when the security forces went into Tivoli Gardens to apprehend Coke.

Within hours of Coke’s plea, his attorney Stephen H Rosen, who is based in Florida, told the Observer that his client’s decision to make a plea resulted from the failure last week to have the court throw out damning wiretap evidence against him.

The fact that 12 convicted men from Tivoli Gardens were set to testify about Coke committing no fewer than six murders in the furtherance of his alleged drug and gun-running operations also contributed to Coke’s decision to enter the guilty pleas, said Rosen.

Rosen said his client risked being imprisoned for life had he gone to trial and was convicted.

“The only way I could guarantee Christopher Coke going home to Jamaica is to accept [this] plea… [Coke] knew what he was facing up here. He knows that it is a difficult place. He knows that justice is not fair for all,” said Rosen.

On the racketeering conspiracy charge, Coke faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a maximum term of five years’ supervised release, and a maximum fine of US$250,000. On the conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering charge, he faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, a maximum term of one year of supervised release, and a maximum fine of US$250,000.

That would see Coke spending 23 years behind bars, but his attorney said that the judge has the discretion of imposing a lesser sentence.

At the same time, the United States said it will be going after Coke’s assets as part of his sentence. The forfeiture is being made under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act, which allows for extended criminal penalties for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organisation. The prosecution is claiming that Coke acquired and maintained assets in violation of the RICO Act and as such, the assets were subject to forfeiture.

Coke’s guilty plea comes just two weeks ahead of his scheduled trial on September 12 and shocked most Jamaicans — especially those in his former base of Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston, who were of the view that the former strongman would have put up a fight. Rosen had told the Observer in June that his client would not cop a plea and that the matter would be going to trial.

“I’m pleading guilty because I am,” The New York Times quoted Coke as telling Judge Robert P Patterson in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Court in Manhattan yesterday.

In the wake of Coke’s plea, Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara issued a release welcoming the outcome of the case and praising the investigators. “For nearly two decades, Christopher Coke led a ruthless criminal enterprise that used fear, force and intimidation to support its drug and arms trafficking ‘businesses’. He moved drugs and guns between Jamaica and the United States with impunity. Today’s plea is a welcome conclusion to this ugly chapter of criminal history,” said Bharara.

According to the Superseding Information filed today in Manhattan federal court, Coke has, since the early 1990s, led the Presidential Click, with members in Jamaica, the United States, and other countries, and controlled the Tivoli Gardens area. The document said that Tivoli Gardens was guarded by a group of gunmen who acted at Coke’s direction. “They were armed with illegally trafficked firearms from the United States that Coke imported into Jamaica. Since 1994, members of the Presidential Click have been involved in drug trafficking in locations throughout the world, including New York City, Miami, and Kingston, Jamaica,” said the document.