{"id":3878,"date":"2011-02-24T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2011-02-24T15:00:22","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T20:00:22","slug":"buju-banton-facing-15-years-in-prison-following-cocaine-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3878","title":{"rendered":"Buju Banton Facing 15 Years In Prison Following Cocaine Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Buju Banton<\/strong> is facing up to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of three charges relating to him setting up a cocaine deal in 2009.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Banton<\/strong>, whose real name is <strong>Mark Myrie<\/strong>, was convicted of conspiracy to possess five or more kilograms of cocaine with the intent to distribute. He was also found guilty of possession of a firearm, and of another drug trafficking offense. A 12-member jury at the United States Sam M. Gibbons Federal Court found <strong>Banton<\/strong> not guilty of a fourth charge of attempted cocaine possession.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Banton<\/strong> was arrested in December 2009 along with two others after video and audio recordings relating to the case were taken by an informant and by Drug Enforcement Administration personnel. He originally stood trial for the offenses in September 2010, although that trial saw the jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict.<\/p>\n<p>A video shown to the jury in the second trial featured footage of <strong>Banton<\/strong> allegedly tasting cocaine in a warehouse. The court also heard that the informant was given $135,000 by one of <strong>Banton\u2019s<\/strong> co-defendants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Banton<\/strong> has been remanded in custody while he awaits sentencing. The singer\u2019s latest album \u2018Before the Dawn\u2019 won Best Reggae Album at the Grammy awards earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buju Banton is facing up to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of three charges relating to him setting up a cocaine deal in 2009. Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, was convicted of conspiracy to possess five or more kilograms of cocaine with the intent to distribute. He was also found [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}