Businessmen freed of drug, money laundering charges

The long-running trial of four businessmen who were accused of being major players in an international multi-million-dollar drug-smuggling and money laundering scheme ended today with the men being freed of the charges.

They are Montego Bay residents Louis Smith, Robert Dunbar, Delroy Gayle and Melford Daley.

Parish Judge Sandria Wong-Small upheld submissions from defense lawyers Hugh Wildman, King's Counsel Tom Tavares Finson, Oswest Senior-Smith and Martyn Thomas that the prosecution did not prove its case against the men.

The trial began in the St James Parish Court in 2019.

The men were arrested and charged in 2013.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution was a man who was serving a 27-year prison sentence in the United States for drug offenses.

He testified by video link from prison that he and the four accused were involved in drug trafficking.

The defense argued that what took place in the trial in the US was irrelevant to the law in Jamaica.

The charges against the men were alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2005.

Wildman submitted that the conviction of the prosecution's witness, Dean Drummond, who was convicted in the US, was, in law, inadmissible to establish the guilt of any of the accused persons in Jamaica.

Wildman also argued that Drummond's evidence could not be relied on in law to support the charges against the men.

The judge, in freeing the men, said she agreed with the submissions made by Wildman.

Attorneys-at-law Anthony Armstrong and Duke Foote appeared with Wildman in the case.

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