While some of his co-accused have pleaded guilty, Tower Suites co-owner Shervington ‘Big Head’ Lovell, who is facing a charge of conspiracy to violate US maritime drug enforcement law, is now set to go on trial on April 14th, 2020, according to an order made by US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe just over a week ago.
The last courtroom status conference for the case, in which Lovell is charged along with David Cardona-Cardona, Argemiro Zapata-Castro and Steven Antonius, was held on August 19th, before Justice Gardephe and it was following that conference he made the order. He also ordered that by September 3rd that all parties submit a joint letter concerning the status of the discovery issues they discussed at the August 19th hearing.
Further, the government was ordered to produce to the defendants translations of transcripts of all the audio and video recordings the government intends to introduce at trial by February 14th, 2020.
Another conference will be held on September 23rd, 2019.
An April 1st, 2019, letter by United States Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman had indicated that the accused persons may be in plea bargaining negotiations with authorities.
In that letter, he had said that the prosecution was in “plea negotiations with several of the defendants” but did not name those who are willing to plead guilty.
However, it appears as if Lovell is not one of those who was in plea-negotiations as he and the other three accused listed above are set to go on trial next year.
There is evidence that two accused, Omar Torres and Godofredo Leandro-Gonzalez, pleaded guilty and are set to be sentenced on December 4th 2019.
The status of the case of the other accused — Luis Rafael Febres Monasterio, Murvin Reigoud Maikel, Moses Roopwah, Neredio-Julian Sucre, Jean-Claude Okongo Landji, Jibril Adamu, and Youssouf Fofana — is unclear.
Lovell was nabbed last year following months of investigation and planning by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which saw him meeting with confidential sources (CSs) in Georgetown and Jamaica to allegedly plan a cocaine shipment to the Netherlands.
It was following the interception of a cocaine-laden vessel, 350 miles off Diamond Valley, Barbados on July 27th, 2018 that a sealed US arrest warrant was issued for Lovell. He and his co-conspirators were allegedly hoping to traffic the 624 kilogrammes of cocaine to the Netherlands via the Azores.
Lovell and Colombian Ricardo Ramirez were arrested along with a Surinamese national on October 25th, 2018, at the Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica on drug trafficking charges.
According to the complaint filed against Lovell, on or about April and July 2018 in Guyana, Jamaica and Colombia on the high seas and elsewhere, he and others intentionally and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other to violate the maritime drug enforcement laws of the US. It further says they knowingly intended to use a vessel to distribute and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance in violation of Title 46 of the United States Code Section 70503 (a) (1).
