News & Analysis This Month/Supplement /

Haiti�s most infamous cocaine kingpin, Beaudoin �Jacques� Ketant, can look forward to shaving lots of time off his 27-year U.S. prison sentence, thanks to his cooperation in the feds� massive investigation of that country�s once-unchecked drug trade.

Ketant, 48, could soon receive the big reduction because he assisted Miami prosecutors in convicting an array of Haitian drug traffickers, police officers and politicians after President Jean Bertrand Aristide�s ouster in 2004, according to a recent federal court filing.

Ketant had lived as a virtually untouchable drug lord in a hilltop mansion overlooking Port-au-Prince until Aristide expelled him under U.S. pressure the previous year. That extraordinary move allowed federal authorities to put Ketant on a plane for Miami and charge him with conspiring to import 30,000 kilos of cocaine into South Florida, New York and other locations.

�He was not the only game in town, but he was the best game in town,� said Miami lawyer David Weinstein, who was chief of the narcotics section at the U.S. Attorney�s Office in Miami during numerous prosecutions stemming from Ketant�s cooperation.

�If you wanted a place to stop on the way to the United States, Haiti was it,� Weinstein added. �This was a huge landing spot to come and go as you pleased because of the climate that existed and the willingness to accept bribe payments and look the other way.�

Earlier this month, the U.S. Attorney�s Office filed a motion to reduce Ketant�s sentence �based upon his substantial assistance� in the successful prosecutions of co-conspirators and other offenders who thrived on Haiti�s role as a shipping hub for tons of Colombian cocaine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynn Kirkpatrick did not disclose the proposed sentence reduction for Ketant, whose release date from an Arkansas federal prison is in 2026. She said she would provide �further detail� at an upcoming hearing before U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who has final say in the matter.

Sources familiar with the case said Ketant could see his term slashed by as much as half � meaning he could be released in a matter of years � because he provided invaluable information on narco-traffickers, drug operations and bribe payoffs.

During the past decade, about 50 Haitian and other defendants were convicted on either drug-smuggling or money-laundering charges, with Ketant�s information responsible for about one-third of those convictions.

His attorneys, Ruben Oliva and Paul Petruzzi, declined to comment, citing �security reasons.�

Ketant grabbed center stage in the government�s drug-trafficking investigation in the days leading up to Aristide�s sudden departure as president in February 2004.

At his sentencing that month in Miami federal court, the flamboyant Ketant made a stunning allegation: He could not have directed his drug-smuggling network without paying millions in bribes to his friend, Aristide. Ketant accused the president of turning Haiti into a �narco-country.�

Aristide�s attorney, Ira Kurzban, repeatedly denied the allegation.

The feds focused for years on Ketant�s allegation of paying off Aristide, but agents struggled to uncover any evidence such as financial records to prove it, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the case.

Last year, Aristide emerged from exile in South Africa and returned to Haiti.

Drug kingpin Ketant

Haitian drug kingpin prosecuted in Miami could get big cut in prison sentence

Haiti�s most notorious narcotics trafficker could see his 27-year prison sentence chopped by as much as half, thanks to his assistance as a cooperating witness in the feds� crackdown on that country�s drug trade.

BY JAY WEAVER

jweaver@MiamiHerald.com