QUICK! Someone call Crocket and Tubbs – PB/TK
Haiti’s Guy Philippe pleads guilty to accepting millions from cocaine smugglers – By
Guy Philippe, an elected Haitian senator and former police commander who eluded capture in Haiti for more than a decade, pleaded guilty Monday in Miami federal court to a drug-related, money-laundering conspiracy charge that could send him to prison for at least nine years.
Philippe, arrested in January, admitted he accepted between $1.5 million and $3.5 million in cocaine profits from Colombian traffickers for allowing them to use Haiti to ship cocaine to Miami and other parts of the United States between 1999 and 2003. The following year, Phillipe gained widespread notoriety when he led a revolt to oust Haiti’s president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
By pleading guilty, Philippe avoided the risk of a trial early next month with possible conviction on the main drug-conspiracy charge — and a potential life sentence.
