19257: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel- Haitian drug kingpin gets 27-year term (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian drug kingpin gets 27-year term

By Ann W. O'Neill
STAFF WRITER
Posted February 26 2004

A federal judge in Miami sentenced high-living Haitian drug lord Beaudoin
"Jacques" Ketant to 27 years in prison Wednesday, fined him $15 million and
ordered him to forfeit another $15 million to the U. S. government.

Ketant, 40, "accumulated Midas-like quantities of material assets" from
trafficking in cocaine, among them five homes, an assortment of luxury
vehicles and more than 300 paintings, including a Picasso and a Monet worth
$1 million apiece, federal prosecutors said.


Yet when the time came to forfeit his wealth under a plea bargain, Ketant
tried to hide it, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes said.

Defense attorney Ruben Oliva said Ketant was hampered in turning over his
wealth by greedy relatives, corrupt police, and a government in turmoil. But
when his turn came to speak, Ketant was less than repentant.

Instead, he unleashed an angry tirade before U.S. Judge Federico Moreno,
accusing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of controlling 85 percent
of the cocaine that moves through Haiti. He called the Haitian president a
"mass murderer," and alleged he accepted his bribes and then "betrayed me"
and "had me kidnapped and sent me here."

"I am not sentencing President Aristide," Moreno responded. "He has not been
charged with anything." Ira Kurzban, a Miami lawyer who represents the
Haitian government, dismissed Ketant's allegations as the words of "a lying
convicted drug dealer."

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on anything Ketant might have told
investigators.

Ketant was indicted in 1997, but remained free for six years, amassing
millions of dollars smuggling cocaine from Colombia to the United States
through Haiti. According to a sentencing memorandum, he earned $13 million
during his last year of freedom, 2003.

His life of luxury ended when a brawl at his son's elite prep school
prompted the Haitian government to expel him. The Haitian national police
arrested Ketant and turned him over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, the incident he referred to as his "kidnapping."

Ketant was accused of paying off former Haitian strongman Joseph Michel
Francois as well as airport employees in Miami, New York and Port-au-Prince
to ignore cocaine and heroin couriers.

With the exception of Francois, the others were convicted and received
sentences ranging from seven years to life in prison. The airport security
chief in Port-au-Prince and a Miami immigration inspector were among those
convicted.

Ketant pleaded guilty in August to money laundering and helping smuggle at
least 30 tons of cocaine between 1986 and 1987. He agreed to forfeit his
drug proceeds and implicate high-ranking Haitian political, military and
police officials in corruption and drug-smuggling schemes in exchange for a
lighter sentence.

But the deal soured and prosecutor Kastrenakes sought a maximum sentence,
telling the judge that Ketant had not delivered on his promise to turn over
his assets to the government.

Francois, then Port-au-Prince's police chief, was never tried. He is living
in Honduras, out of reach of the DEA. He faces a life sentence in Haiti for
the 1993 killing of an Aristide supporter.

Information from The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.



Ann W. O'Neill can be reached at 954-356-4531 or aoneill@sun-sentinel.com.

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