Quebec’s billion-dollar marquis of marijuana is volunteering for a stiffer drug trafficking sentence in the United States — provided Ottawa guarantees him an inmate transfer to Canada, just as it did for Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr.
Jimmy Cournoyer, 34, pleaded guilty last year in a New York court to running a massive marijuana and cocaine-trafficking enterprise, moving an estimated $1-billion in drugs across borders.
He is now arguing over his sentence.
U.S. prosecutors say Cournoyer is a masterful drug baron who forged ties to the Mafia in Montreal, the Hells Angels biker gang, aboriginal smugglers and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Prosecutors last month asked Brooklyn federal Judge Raymond Dearie to hand Cournoyer a 30-year prison term, instead of 20 years, because he likely will be transferred to a prison in Canada, where his sentence would be slashed by Canada’s more lenient parole system.
(By treaty agreement, citizens of Canada and the United States who are imprisoned in the other country can apply to serve their sentence in their homeland.)
As part of Cournoyer’s plea bargaining, he asked for a binding agreement approving a transfer to Canada but was told the government could not do that, said Gerald McMahon, Cournoyer’s New York lawyer.
“We have just learned that the United States government does, in fact, make such agreements,” Mr. McMahon said in a court filing.
He sent Judge Dearie a copy of diplomatic notes between Canada and the United States agreeing to transfer Khadr, a Canadian who had been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay where he pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism. Khadr is now is serving his sentence in Alberta.
A 2010 note to the U.S. State Department from Canada’s embassy in
Washington, D.C., confirmed to U.S. prosecutors that, “as requested by
the United States, the Government of Canada is inclined to favourably
consider Mr. Khadr’s application to be transferred to Canada.”Cournoyer wants one of those diplomatic agreements too, and in return he will agree to a 30-year sentence instead of fighting the government for a 20-year term.
“It is clear from that exhibit that an agreement guaranteeing treaty transfer to Canada can be done,” Mr. McMahon told the judge.
“Considering that the government has expressed optimism that Jimmy Cournoyer will at some point be transferred to Canada, they should gladly accept this offer.
“And Cournoyer, who has not seen a member of his family since he was seized in Mexico on Feb. 17, 2012, will finally be able to go home.”
Mr. McMahon also says the U.S. government is trying to spoil Cournoyer’s international prison transfer by accusing him of criminal acts he was not charged with, including kidnapping, assaults, gun running, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
“The recitation of criminal conduct is not only totally false, according to Cournoyer, but it makes no sense,” Mr. McMahon told the judge.
“The prosecutor knows very well that Canada is much less likely to
approve the transfer of a prisoner who is alleged to have committed acts
of violence and/or obstruction of justice.”Cournoyer specifically denies working with the Rizzuto crime family, historically the dominant Mafia organization in Montreal, as prosecutors allege.
“Cournoyer never partnered or associated with anyone from the Rizzuto family and never employed [alleged Mafia soldier Giuseppe] Fetta as a driver and bodyguard,” Mr. McMahon wrote, saying the government’s allegation is a case of mistaken identity — Cournoyer’s former driver, a man who “had no connection to the Rizzuto family but who looks like Fetta.”
“Cournoyer also never imported firearms into Canada for the Rizzuto family,” he wrote.
Cournoyer shepherded his businesses from growing a little marijuana in his Laval apartment as a teenager to a “massive international drug consortium,” prosecutors say.
He lived a playboy lifestyle, driving exotic sports cars, entertaining friends on an island resort and partying with celebrities and his international model girlfriend.
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