Thread: U.S. tries to deport sisters who told on drug lords

www.elpasotimes.com

Monday, July 18, 2005

U.S. tries to deport sisters who told on drug lords

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

Antoinette and Novelette Barrett's job with their Jamaican drug gang was to stuff tens of thousands of dollars inside their jackets in New York and fly to El Paso.

Here, the Jamaican sisters would turn the money over to other operatives to buy marijuana, spend a few nights in a rented Northeast apartment and take a plane home.

Their scheme fell apart in 1999, when El Paso police stopped several other couriers at El Paso International Airport with bundles of money taped to their calves under baggy jeans, court documents showed.

The Barretts, who have green cards, agreed to testify for the government under the impression that they would be allowed to remain in the United States. The women believed then -- and still do -- that they would be harmed by the gangs in Jamaica, called "posses," especially since their names were read as witnesses in open court and since their snitching was reported in a widely read Jamaican newspaper.

"They are going to torture us," said Novelette Barrett, 36.

Yet the women face deportation, held at the immigration detention center on Montana Avenue at Hawkins Boulevard. Government officials say no guarantees were given to the Barretts that they could stay in the United States.

On Thursday, an immigration judge postponed their hearing until September.

The Barretts' El Paso lawyer, Bernard Rosenbloom, said the case illustrates the exploitative treatment of foreign informants and witnesses by the U.S. government. His clients' testimonies put away 40 drug dealers, including two corrupt New York police detectives, Rosenbloom said.

But once the case was over, "it's bye-bye baby," he said.

"I'm not saying my clients are paradigms of virtue but the government used them. They thought they were going into the Witness Protection Program. It happens all the time," he said.

The U.S. Attorney's office said prosecutors can only make recommendations to, not order, immigration officials to take into account an informant's contribution.

Rosenbloom is handling another case in which a longtime El Paso drug informant is being returned to Mexico because his visa expired. He asked that the man's name not be used.

John Majersy, a former undercover drug detective who worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration, worked with that informant six years ago and testified for Rosenbloom at an immigration hearing. He said the man told him he was "burned," meaning that his crime associates found out he was an informant.

Majersy said federal and local law enforcement in El Paso work with about 100 drug informants, including 30 on a regular basis. He knows of 11 who have been killed during his 16-year career, but not because they were removed from the United States, he said.

"Our deal is we'll give you a permit (to stay in the United States) as long as you work. You sign a contract that you won't receive any special privileges, no special rights," he said.

Informants are paid with 10 to 20 percent of monetary seizures made thanks to their tips.

Informants can be allowed into the country temporarily -- what is called being "paroled" -- and given a temporary work permit. Longterm options include the S Visa and the Witness Protection Program. The U.S. Marshals Service reported that the only participants in the Witness Protection Program who were harmed had failed to follow security guidelines. But many small-time informants like the Barretts often don't meet the programs' requirements.

In the Barrett case, the sisters got a reduced sentence for agreeing to testify.

But Novelette Barrett said that wasn't the motivation.

"We can do the time. We went to school in prison. It went fast," she said.

What enticed them to testify was the promise they could stay -- a promise they said was made orally by investigators and prosecutors in New York and in El Paso but never put down on paper.

In a 2002 letter to New York defense attorneys, El Paso Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden denied making such a promise, but said that if contacted by imigration authorities, she would "advise ... of their cooperation."

"I specifically told (the Barretts) that, because of the events of September 11th, they might not be able to stay in the United States," Fielden wrote. "I do believe that there are safety concerns if the Barretts return to Jamaica."

A New York defense network that helps immigrants, Families for Freedom, has studied the informant conundrum after handling 10 to 15 cases -- mostly involving Jamaicans and Nigerians -- in the past two to three years.

Subhash Kateel, a community organizer with the group, said none of the cases resulted in death, but that one man who was deported lives in hiding.

One of Kateel's current cases involves a 35-year-old Jamaican man named Patrick Lincoln Brown, a green card holder who was arrested on crimes including assault and petty larceny. According to court documents, Brown, a crack addict, testified against a drug dealer who had stabbed his girlfriend to death. The drug dealer was sentenced to 29 years and Brown was ordered removed from the United States because of his own criminal record.

The drug dealer in that case was allegedly connected to the Shower posse, as in a "shower" of bullets, one of the two largest criminal gangs in Jamaica and the same gang the Barretts said they were a part of.

Jamaican posses started in the 1970s, as violent street enforcers for political parties. Later, while still connected to political groups, they branched into drug trafficking and set up operations in the United States and Britain, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services reports.

Scholars have attributed more than 1,400 killings to the Shower posse. Immigrants say many victims had betrayed the gang.

"Jamaicans (say) they figure once you do that (testify), you're (an) informer. You're not to live," Brown said in court documents in his case.

The Barrett sisters got into drug dealing through boyfriends and said they didn't think they could get in trouble for carrying money. Court documents show they also helped package the drugs.

Novelette Barrett said she regrets testifying and, most of all, she regrets talking her brother, a U.S. citizen, into testifying as well.

"My brother did not want us to do it, but as females, we're so naive. We just jumped in and he went with us," she said.

The Barrett sisters got into drug dealing through boyfriends and said they didn't think they could get in trouble for carrying money. Court documents show they also helped package the drugs.

"My brother did not want us to do it, but as females, we're so naive. We just jumped in and he went with us," she said.