A major Haitian drug trafficker who helped Miami prosecutors target corrupt officials in the government of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide received a large sentence reduction.
Jean Eliobert Jasme, a big-time cocaine smuggler who gave the U.S. government an inside view of drug trafficking in the administration of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide saw his nearly 20-year sentence cut in half Wednesday.
Jean Eliobert Jasme's prison term was reduced to about 10 years by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, because federal prosecutors and defense lawyers jointly recommended it based on his ''substantial assistance'' in dozens of Miami trafficking cases.
Jasme, expelled by Aristide in 2003, the year before the president's ouster became a central witness in the U.S. government's mission to slow the flow of cocaine from Colombia via Haiti to South Florida.
Jasme contributed to at least 17 prosecutions of Haitian government officials, senior police officers and other cocaine smugglers -- with all but one ending in convictions.
