Tower owner to go on trial for drug conspiracy charge in April

Owner of the Hotel Tower and suspected drug kingpin, Shervington Lovell aka “Big Head”, who pleaded not guilty to a conspiracy to violate US maritime drug enforcement law charge, is set to go to trial on April 14, 2020, according to an order made by US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe.

The last courtroom status conference for the case, in which Lovell is charged along with his co-accused David Cardona-Cardona, Argemiro Zapata-Castro and Steven Antonius, was held on August 19, 2019 before Justice Gardephe.
However, it was during the conference the order was made. Lovell, along with his co-accused was ordered to submit a joint letter by September, 3, concerning the status of the discoveries issues they discussed at the previous hearing in August.
Hence, Justice Gardephe, ordered the government to produce the defendant’s translations of transcripts of all the audio and video recordings the government intends to introduce at trial by February 14, 2020. Nevertheless, another conference is expected to be held on September 23, 2019.
A letter by the United of States Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman dated on April 1, 2019, had indicated that the accused persons may be in plea bargaining negotiations with authorities, however Lovell was not listed as one of the persons in the negotiation.
There is evidence that Omar Torres and Godofredo Leandro-Gonzalez, pleaded guilty and are set to be sentenced on December 4, 2019.
Nonetheless, the status of the case of the other accused is unclear; Luis Rafael Febres Monasterio, Murvin Reigoud Maikel, Moses Roopwah, Neredio-Julian Sucre, Jean-Claude Okongo Landji, Jibril Adamu, and Youssouf Fofana.
It was reported that Lovell who had been under the radar of CANU and international investigators for a lengthy period was arrested along with two others.
According to reports, Lovell is allegedly conspired with others to ship more than 1300 pounds of cocaine to The Netherlands in a drug trafficking operation that involved laundered money from South Africa and other countries.
US agents have said that the cocaine was found aboard a “stateless” vessel in international waters back in July. According to US agents in their indictment, the Guyanese hotel owner met with other suspected drug traffickers back in Guyana in June to plan the shipment. He also met with other drug traffickers in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where he owns a house.
A vessel, property of Lovell, was intercepted which is suspected to be used by the businessman to ship the illicit drugs from Jamaica to St Maarten.
The hotelier has been under the radar of local Police since 2010 when he was being investigated for a series of executions. However charges were never brought against him for those allegations.