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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Jamaican Drug Lord Pleads Guilty in NYC

MANHATTAN (CN) - Jamaican drug dealer Christopher Coke pleaded guilty Wednesday to racketeering conspiracy and conspiring to commit assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from a 20-year drug ring he allegedly ran out of the Caribbean nation.

Coke, 42, was accused of using gunmen armed with weapons they bought in the United States to protect the Kingston, Jamaica, operation.

Prosecutors say Coke ran his "Shower Posse" or "Presidential Click" out of the Tivoli Gardens area since at least 1994. His gunmen "were armed with illegally trafficked firearms from the United States that Coke imported into Jamaica," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in announcing his plea agreement.

From Kingston, Coke sent marijuana, cocaine and crack cocaine to New York City, Miami and elsewhere, prosecutors said.

He faces up to 20 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy, and a $250,000 fine or twice his pecuniary gain from the offense, and up to 3 years and the same fine for conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering.

Coke and his gunmen were accused of conspiring to assault a drug dealer in the Bronx who owed them money.

He will be sentenced on Dec. 5.

Jamaican police arrested Coke on June 22, 2010 near Kingston, and he was in jail in New York 2 days later.

Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, in recent years has become riddled with violence, much of it drug-fueled, which has hurt the island's tourist-dependent economy.

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