Reggae star Buju Banton has hit the news again as he is denied permission by the judge in his case to perform in a Christmas concert while his lawyers try to get his gun charged dropped.
Judge denies Banton’s request to perform, reports the St Petersburgh Times.
The show apparently won’t go on for Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton, who has been on house arrest in Broward County since bailing out of the Pinellas County Jail on Nov. 10. Banton, 37, whose real name is Mark Myrie, wants to perform a live concert in Miami on Dec. 26. U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Porcelli denied that request Tuesday, saying whatever financial pressures Banton faces do not outweigh the risk that he might flee. Banton’s attorney Wednesday asked the judge to reconsider, saying the 24-hour security detail ordered to monitor Banton as a condition of his release costs $20,000 a month. Plus, there’s the cost of preparing for his upcoming drug trafficking retrial. Banton’s security detail does not object to him doing the concert and would be present for the show, his lawyer says. The prosecutor does object. No word on whether he would attend.
Meanwhile, the lawyers representing Banton have filed a motion in court to have the gun charge against him dropped, Jamaics’s Gleaner.
Buju is set to be retried on charges of drug conspiracy and possession of a firearm during the course of a drug-trafficking crime. But in documents filed in the US District Court in the Middle District of Florida last Monday, Buju’s lawyers urged the judge to free him of the gun charge. “As the court is well aware, the jury in this cause could not reach a verdict, and a mistrial was ordered. The government has indicated that it intends to retry the case. In the light most favorable to the government, the evidence was insufficient to convict Mr Myrie on Count 2, the 924(c) charge and, accordingly, Mr Myrie should only be retried on Count 1,” Buju’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, argued.
Amending the indictment
“First, there is no evidence Mark Myrie knew that James Mack (a co-accused) had a gun in his car. The undisputed facts at trial established that Mr Myrie had never even spoken to or met James Mack before being arrested in this case. As for the second element, there is nothing that ‘links’ Mr Myrie to this gun,” added Markus. The lawyer charged that having realized that it could not prove that Buju aided or abetted the possession of the gun, the prosecution attempted to amend the indictment after the close of the first trial. There is simply no evidence that it was reasonably foreseeable to Mr Myrie that Mr Mack would be present at this drug deal and that he would be in possession of a gun,” said Markus.
The court is expected to rule on the matter shortly.
Buju and his co-accused, Mack and Ian Thomas, were arrested last December after US law-enforcement agents allegedly recorded them planning a drug deal.
Mack and Thomas, who were held when he went to purchase the coke, subsequently pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
But Buju, who has repeatedly claimed he was not guilty, faced the court in a trial which ended in a hung jury.
He is now out on bail and scheduled to return to court for a second trial early next year.
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http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101118/lead/lead6.html
