(Jamaica Gleaner) Email correspondence involving Solicitor General Douglas Leys, local attorney Harold Brady, and officials of the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips confirms that the United States law firm was working on behalf of the Golding-led Government of Jamaica, even if it had been engaged by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
The emails also suggest that the claim by Manatt that it had not been engaged to address the extradition request involving Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke was not true.
Using the Access to Information Act, The Sunday Gleaner acquired copies of the emails, which span a seven-month period from September 2009 to March 2010.
In a statement to Parliament in April of this year, Prime Minister Golding said he had sanctioned the retention of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on condition that it was “undertaken by the party, not by or on behalf of the Government.” However, not only was the solicitor general, a senior government officer, giving instructions to the law firm, he was actioning instructions from its officials.
The emails also indicate that the prime minister and the attorney general were updated at intervals on the discussions and were apparently involved in the next-steps decisions as the Government sought to lobby the US on the Coke issue.
“We have to talk on Monday after we have had a chance to brief the PM and the AG (Dorothy Lightbourne),” said Brady in an email to Manatt, which was copied to Leys.
That conference call was requested on December 23 by Susan Schmidt of Manatt who indicated to Leys and the others that she would like to talk about meetings and the next steps.
Seeking clearance
The emails also include directions from Manatt for the solicitor general to write to a high-ranking member of the US Justice Department seeking clearance on a proposed press release to be issued locally during the heat of the ‘Dudus’ controversy.
The first email contact between Leys and Manatt came on September 19, less than one month after the Government received the extradition request for Coke.
At that time, Leys sent the law firm an email outlining his suggested questions and other legal issues pertaining to the request.
But in a cover statement to The Sunday Gleaner, Leys declared that the email was sent to Manatt for the attention of Brady because efforts to send it to the local lawyer’s email address had failed.
Unaware of MPP
“At the time I sent this email, I was not aware of the existence of the firm MPP (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips) or who were the owners of these email addresses. Therefore, the first email to MPP was done at a time when I did not know of the existence of the firm,” Leys said.
However, three months later, Leys invited a representative of Manatt to sit in on a meeting he had in Washington with US officials to discuss the Coke extradition request.
Schmidt later prepared two versions of a press release, which she indicated the law firm wanted to “run by the US government”. “If the US government agrees, then it can say the two governments are committed together. If they don’t want the Government of Jamaica to speak for it, then the version we would provide to the US government for its information is … ,” Schmidt said. Leys had previously told The Sunday Gleaner about the draft press release, which he claimed he decided not to issue, although in his response to Schmidt the solicitor general indicated that he would prefer the first release, which represented the position of the two countries.
“Why don’t we put the joint one first, and if they object, we could always say we will reconsider and then come back with the last option as an alternative?” said Leys in a December 28 email to Schmidt.
Leys also wrote the law firm, giving permission to go ahead with the release following questions from officials of the company if “further review or approval at your end is required … “
With the release not issued by December 31, Brady pointed his colleagues at Manatt to an editorial in The Gleaner which was biting in its criticism of the Government’s handling of the Coke extradition request.
“Any feedback from your end? Please see page A6 of today’s Daily Gleaner. It would be helpful if we could put something out from this end,” Brady said.
Return call
The response from Manatt was that it was awaiting a return call from ranking member of the US Department of Justice, Justice Molly Warlow.
Two weeks later, Manatt official Kevin Di Gregory wrote to Leys indicating that the US Department of Justice wanted any discussion to be with a Jamaican government official. Di Gregory recommended that Leys send the Justice official the proposed release.
The Manatt official also suggested the language that Leys should use and requested that he be informed of the response from the Justice Department.
“… Because of the intense media and public interest in the Coke extradition, we feel it necessary to inform our citizens that a process is under way to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion … ,” read a section of the text proposed by Di Gregory.
With that release apparently going nowhere, Manatt wrote to Leys in February, pointing to an extradition hearing taking place in the US, and argued that a ruling by the judge could be considered in the Coke case.
The emails end on March 8, 2010, when Manatt sent Brady and copied to Leys the US narcotics report, with the references to the Dudus extradition request highlighted.
