Lance Small gets 12½ years
A UNITED STATES Federal judge sentenced Jamaat Al Muslimeen member Lance Small to serve 151 months (12 years and seven months) in a federal prison for his supervisory role in seeking to buy sophisticated weapons to ship to Trinidad in 2000. According to Judge William Dimitrouleas, the sentence was an appropriate one, and dismissed a last minute plea by the defence to "downgrade" the sentence due to Small’s age and failing health. Small, 70, who sat at the Bar table in handcuffs pleaded for leniency just before the sentence was passed, saying he was set up by ATF special agent Steve Mc Kean, and by former Jamaat members Neville Reid and Keith Andre Glaude. Small remained silent in his defence at the trial in May, but when asked if he had anything to say yesterday, he grasped the opportunity and made a "full defence" during his plea for leniency. He tried his best to convince the judge, sitting in Room 207 in the United States Federal Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, but the judge already had copies of a probation officer’s report and a pre-sentence report before him. Unlike the trial when he had no support, yesterday Small’s wife Myrna, 65, son Neil, daughter, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, sat in the public gallery to hear the sentence passed on the top Jamaat member. The judge sentenced Small to 60 months on the charge of conspiracy to possess weapons, 120 months on the charge of possession of guns, and 31 months on the charge of possession of silencers. The terms of 120 months and 31 months are to run consecutively. In passing sentence, Judge Dimitrouleas said he found that Small played a supervisory role in the crime of conspiracy to possess 60 AK-47 rifles, ten Mac-10 guns and ten silencers. The judge said a plea had been made on Small’s behalf for a smaller sentence because of his age and failing health. He dismissed this and said he was confident that the prison authorities had the proper facilities to deal with Small’s illnesses of diabetes and prostate-related problems. He also dismissed the motion for a reduced sentence for the Trinidadian. Judge Dimitrouleas said after Small had served his term, he must have three years of supervised release. According to the judge, during this period of release, Small must not possess a firearm, dangerous drug, or re-enter the United States without the permission of the US authorities. The judge also gave Small ten days within which to appeal the sentence. Small’s son Neil said his father plans to appeal the sentence imposed. Before the sentence was passed, Small, sitting at the Bar table in an olive-coloured suit, made a stirring plea for leniency. "Judge, what has happened in this trial, no one will believe those who took the stand against me. What they did was wrong, they lied from the beginning to the end. What you saw on the tape of Keith Glaude taking up weapons, had nothing to do with me. "When he made mention of the pamphlets, it had nothing to do with guns. The only time when guns were mentioned was when Mr Mc Kean said that he had passed on the machine guns and silencers to Glaude." Small continued, "I had nothing to do with guns. A man claimed he owed me $40,000 for the last six years. He said he gave the $40,000 to the agent (Mc Kean) and the agent took the money and bought guns with my money. How could I want guns?" Small said the conspiracy then began. He said Mc Kean, posing as a gun runner, even called his office in Trinidad and asked him to come for the money. He said he was persona non grata in the US and he needed someone to get the money. "I called Salim and Glaude and I told them to go and get the money. I even called Musa and told him to see that they collected the money. Every time they went for the money, they kept hearing about guns. Then, Glaude was arrested for touching the guns." Small said one day when Glaude told him on the telephone about guns and silencers, he hung up. "Why did they talk about guns and silencers? I never sent him for that. To take up guns from the United States and send them to Trinidad, that is an expense, I did not want that. This is a set-up by Mr Mc Kean and Neville Reid." Small added, "Allah is my judge, I had nothing to do with guns. Nobody never owed me money, it was fabrication and lies. I would like the least sentence as possible, so I could be back home with my family," Small pleaded. Assistant US Attorney Roger Powell, who prosecuted, said the trial showed that Small was involved in extensive criminal activity. "It was just that he was not caught. He is a terrorist. This individual was number two in the Jamaat. In 2000, firearms were to be shipped to Trinidad." Powell said the court was authorised to enter consecutive sentences against Small. He said this was one of the rare instances where consecutive sentences should be applied. Powell said, during the trial, a picture was shown to the court of Small’s involvement in the 1990 attempted coup. "Now, he is doing it again, 60 AK-47 guns, ten firearms and ten silencers. He was supervising three individuals, he went to prison twice before. Keith Glaude went to prison. "It is a case which clearly shows that this individual continuously lived a life of crime," Powell added. Small’s attorney Joseph Gibson tried unsuccessfully to get Small a reduced sentence. He said Small’s medical condition was not good, that he had been to hospital on one occasion, and was due for an operation to correct a prostate problem. Newsday learnt that Small has requested that he be jailed at a prison in New York, close to where his wife and family live.
Neil Small says:
Lance will be back to deal with them
NEIL SMALL was just 11 when he came to America to live. He was in Trinidad for Carnival to spend his father’s birthday with him in 2004, when the Jamaat Al Muslimeen member was arrested in Port-of-Spain for possible extradition to the United States.
Neil followed the extradition proceedings in Trinidad. Small was extradited to Florida in November 2004. Neil has been in regular contact with his father, visiting him in the federal prison and speaking to him by telephone regularly.
After Small was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in jail yesterday, Neil sounded bitter at his father’s fate. He was also disappointed in the way American attorney Joseph Gibson defended his father. Neil claims that the family had already paid 75 percent of the US $100,000 legal bill for the defence on the gun-related charges in Florida.
Neil said his father plans to appeal the lengthy sentence handed down yesterday and told Newsday that Small will have a new attorney in his corner at the appeal hearing.
Newsday interviewed Neil outside the US Federal Courthouse here:
Q: What did you think of the sentence imposed on your father this morning?
A: Under the federal guideline sentencing, and the laws of the United States, it was lenient. The judge could have given him a lesser sentence but he chose not to because the prosecution won him over, that my father was part of an illegal side in the island of Trinidad and Tobago.
Everyone knows that since 9/11, the terrorist act that Bin Laden put on this country, they are out to exterminate anyone, especially when one says he is a Muslim. If they are caught doing any wrongdoings as far as America is concerned, and if they are affiliated with a Muslim sect, they are wronged. They will always be shut down. My dad could not do anything to hurt anyone. If you ask 100,000 people in Trinidad who know my father, 90,000 of them will say my father was good to them. My father helped everyone.
They wanted money borrow, my father helped them, they needed something, my father helped them, they had no groceries, my father gave them. My village owes my father, I really don’t want to say that. My father is an icon in Trinidad. Before my father became a Muslim, all dem politicians were with my father.
Q: In light of your feelings, what do you think was behind this whole affair?
A: I think it was a political move between Trinidad and the United States Government. Trinidad wants to oust some bad names from 1990. What does 1990 have to do with 2005? In 1990, the Privy Council ruled that my dad and 113 others, or members of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen who attempted the coup in Trinidad, had an amnesty which was good. They stayed in prison for two and a half years.
Was not that a grave punishment for what they had done? As far as people are concerned, people died and these Jamaat men should have remained there and rot in jail. I went to the bank in Trinidad and Tobago to get money borrowed and they did not lend me.
Why? Because I am my father’s son. I have never done anything wrong in Trinidad and Tobago. My slate is clean. How come you can’t lend me money. I brought what I needed to bring to the bank to get money borrowed. I brought a clean deed worth $2 million. Why would you not lend me, why would you want to hurt me? It was very vindictive on their behalf.
Q: How does you father feel about this whole thing?
A: I know my father is a very strong black man. He is taking it as a man because he knows there is nothing else he can do.
He knows his rights have been violated. There will come a time because even though the judge imposed 12 and a half years, he will outlive that 12 and a half years. He will be back to deal with all who put him there, who did unjust things to him.
It was an unjust extradition. We also know that what he got sentenced for, was an unjust charge. How could you have two men granted United States passports for committing crimes in America? When you commit crimes in America, as a foreigner, you are deported back to your country after you do your time. This is politically motivated. They were offered US passports to turn evidence against my father. Why?
It had to be because the Governments were talking. They want to get him out, just as they want to get many others out.
I believe in the Master. My master is all ah we God. When we wake up in the morning and before we go to sleep at night, we pray. God will answer all of them in the near future. The family is happy that it is all over. There is nothing else they could do to him. My mother is taking it on because she is looking at 12 years being too long a time away from him. She can’t see him. She can just talk to him.
Small’s wife breaks down in tears
MYRNA SMALL broke down in tears after Judge William Dimitrouleas sentenced her husband Lance Small to 12 years and seven months in a federal prison for gun-related charges.
Mrs Small, 65, had to be taken away by her daughter and daughter-in-law to their car to compose herself.
She emerged minutes later to speak to Newsday.
"I think the sentence was too long. He was never near no guns, no money passed. Everything was hearsay. Nothing was proven that guns were sent to him. This was a set-up," she claimed.
Mrs Small, who lives in New Jersey, said she was hoping that she and Lance would have spent their retirement years together. She was hoping for a lighter sentence so she could be with Small in the near future.
"Now, that is not certain as they sent him away for so long."
Comments
"Lance Small gets 12½ years"