Give thanks - US-based Jcan lawyer says Buju got the best sentence

IT could have been far worse for Jamaican reggae superstar Buju Banton than the 10-year sentence he received yesterday in the Sam M Gibbons Federal Court in Tampa, Florida.

Hours after the Grammy-winning artiste was ordered imprisoned for a decade, US-based Jamaican attorney Oliver Smith said the 37-year-old singer got the best sentence possible, given the crime for which he was convicted.

SMITH what could have happened is that the judge could have given him more than the statutory minimum 1/1

"It's the best sentence he could expect to get. Remember, there is a statutory mandatory minimum. What could have happened is that the judge could have given him more than the statutory minimum," Smith said in a telephone interview with the Observer.

"It would be virtually impossible for the judge to give him anything else; because he got convicted he would not get any of the downward departures one would normally get if one had pleaded guilty," added Smith.

When Banton appeared in court yesterday he faced a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years in a federal prison which would calculate to 10 years for his convictions on a charge of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine and five years for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offence. But US Judge James Moody threw out the gun conviction, reducing the artiste's sentence to 10 years.

Banton, whose real name is Mark Anthony Myrie, was also sentenced to 48 months for his conviction on the charge of using the wires (telephone) to facilitate a drug trafficking offence. That sentence will, however, run concurrent to the 10 years.

The artiste was found guilty, in a second trial in February, of conspiring to negotiate a drug deal in a police-controlled warehouse in Florida. A first trial in September last year ended with a hung jury. Banton's conviction follows his arrest in December 2009. He was arrested along with two other men -- Ian Thomas and James Mack -- who both subsequently pleaded guilty. Thomas was sentenced to four years.

Banton's attorney David Oscar Markus has signalled his intent to appeal the guilty verdict and indicated that he would move with alacrity to secure the artiste's release.

Yesterday, Smith said that in the federal system, Banton will serve two-thirds of the 10 years, which will reduce his sentence to six years. Time will likely be taken off for the more than a year Banton spent awaiting trial, since his 2009 arrest.