24766: Hermantin (news) Haiti's ex-police chief pleads to drug charge

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Apr. 14, 2005
Around South Florida

> From Herald Wire Services
MIAMI
Haiti's ex-police chief pleads to drug charge

Haiti's former national police director has pleaded guilty to a reduced 
charge with days left before other former Haitian police officials face 
trial on charges they protected Colombian cocaine shipments through their 
destitute homeland.

Jean Nesly Lucien, who was arrested in Miami last May, pleaded guilty to a 
money laundering count Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke. The 
charge carries a possible 20-year sentence, but prosecutors agreed to 
recommend less if he cooperates against three co-defendants.

Lucien, 43, was accused of tipping off cocaine traffickers in Haiti after 
the Drug Enforcement Administration learned about incoming shipments and 
helping steer DEA agents away from drugs.

An informant also told DEA agents that Lucien and former Haitian anti-drug 
chief Evintz Brillant seized $450,000 in drug profits from a Colombian 
trafficker in 2002, returned $300,000, split the rest with other corrupt 
officers and agreed to split the take on future drug shipments through the 
airport in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Facing trial Monday are Brillant, former Haitian national police commander 
Rudy Therassan and Romaine Lestin, a former Port-au-Prince airport police 
chief.