A lawyer for Guyanese businessman Peter Morgan, who pleaded not guilty to three drug charges in New York and was remanded to prison last month, is in plea bargain negotiations with the prosecution, court documents have said.
Morgan was expected to return to court on October 10. However when the matter was called Judge Edward Korman said that the court having been advised by counsel, in writing, of ongoing plea negotiations, and the counsel having sought an adjournment for the purpose of conducting such negotiations, the application was granted. Accord-ing to the judge “because the purpose of the delay is to allow discussions to take place that could eliminate the necessity for a trial, I find that the considerations underlying the Speedy Trial Act are outweighed by the interests of justice and the time is excluded.”
Morgan, who was extradited on August 23 from Trinidad is represented by attorney-at-law Chris Mancini.
He was extradited after he withdrew the last-ditch appeal he had made in the Port of Spain Appellate Court challenging the order for his extradition to face drug charge
Morgan had initially attempted to have the extradition order made by Trinidad Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls on April 30, reversed. His lawyers had appealed but it was dismissed in the High Court and then a new appeal was filed.
Trinidad and Tobago High Court Judge Gregory Smith, in dismissing the first challenge to the extradition order had said the four complaints raised by Morgan were without merit. He had then ordered Morgan to bear the legal costs incurred by the state in defending the action. Morgan, 46, of Oleander Gardens, Georgetown, was given permission to appeal this decision and he took it up. The drug suspect was arrested at the Piarco International Airport on March 9 while in-transit to Guyana. Trinidad police executed a provisional warrant for his arrest on conspiracy charges to smuggle illegal drugs into New York. He had been denied bail since his arrest.
According to one of the charges, sometime between October 1, 2001 and August 31, 2003, Morgan knowingly and intentionally conspired with David Narine, Susan Narine, Hung-Fung Mar and other persons unknown, to traffic in cocaine by importation. The second charge alleges that sometime between December 1, 2001 and August 31, 2003, he trafficked in cocaine by importation. He faces jail terms of ten years to life imprisonment if convicted.
West had also disclosed that between 2001 and 2003, Morgan was suspected of supplying between 15 and 100 kilogrammes of cocaine to Trinidad, St Martin, Barbados, Canada and the United States.
