A federal court in Miami has postponed the sentencing of former BVI Ports Authority Managing Director Oleanvine Maynard and her son Kadeem Maynard for the alleged cocaine-smuggling conspiracy that they admitted undertaking last year with then-Premier Andrew Fahie.
Ms. Maynard’s sentencing hearing — which, like her son’s, was originally slated for Aug. 21 — was pushed forward to Jan. 18.
The new date is 10 days after Mr. Fahie’s trial is scheduled to start in the same court.
Mr. Maynard’s sentencing was postponed as well, but no new date has been set.
D’Arsey Houlihan, the public defender representing Ms. Maynard, said the sentencings were among multiple matters that were postponed from Monday.
“The judge is currently in the middle of a trial,” Mr. Houlihan told the Beacon on Aug. 18. “She will be starting the trial again Monday morning and will be in trial all day. She has cancelled or postponed all of the hearings that she had scheduled for Monday, other than the trial that is currently taking place.”
In recent days, Mr. Maynard has asked the court for leniency and attempted to downplay his role in the alleged cocaine-smuggling conspiracy, and he and his mother have both filed several letters from character references.
Asking for leniency
When the Maynards pleaded guilty in June, they both signed factual proffers describing a plot with Mr. Fahie to traffic thousands of kilograms of cocaine through Virgin Islands waters to the United States.
In Mr. Maynard’s factual proffer, he admitted to coordinating meetings between Mr. Fahie, Ms. Maynard, and a US Drug Enforcement Administration confidential source between March 16 and April 28, 2022.
During these meetings, Mr. Fahie and the Maynards agreed to allow the confidential source — who they believed to be a member of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel — to port vessels containing 3,000-kilogram loads of cocaine in Tortola for 24 to 48 hours until the drugs could be shipped to Puerto Rico en route to the mainland US, according to both Maynards’ factual proffers.
The Maynards added that the DEA source provided them each with $10,000 in cash as a gesture of “good faith.”
New filing
But this month, Mr. Maynard’s Miami defence attorney took issue with a probation officer’s pre-sentence investigation report and described Mr. Maynard’s part in the conspiracy as largely that of an introducer.
“Mr. Maynard’s role in the charged offence was clearly minor,” attorney J. Rafael Rodriguez claimed in an Aug. 10 response to the probation officer’s report, which itself was not made public.
“Mr. Maynard spoke to [the confidential informant] and provided information to his mother. Mr. Maynard made an introduction of the [informant] to his mother, who worked as the managing director of the BVI Ports Authority.”
The filing also listed actions that it claimed Mr. Maynard didn’t carry out, including some allegedly taken by his mother and Mr. Fahie.
“Mr. Maynard did not falsify paperwork at the BVI port,” the filing stated, adding, “Mr. Maynard did not speak to anyone in the port to arrange for the trans-shipment of narcotics. Mr. Maynard did not negotiate the [informant’s] access to the BVI port. Mr. Maynard did not bribe anyone. Mr. Maynard neither negotiated nor calculated the amount of money to be paid for the 3,000-kilo loads. Mr. Maynard did not travel to Miami to collect any money from the CI and was not shown any money in Miami.”
Mr. Rodriguez — who declined to comment for this story — also took issue with the guideline imprisonment range of about 11 to 14 years calculated by the probation officer.
Instead, he asked the court to use a guideline range of about six to seven years.
Remorse
The sentence, he added, should also consider Mr. Maynard’s remorse, his cooperation with prosecutors, and his time on remand since his arrest in April 2022.
“Mr. Maynard submits that a sentence below the current guidelines range is warranted in this case,” the filing stated. “Such a sentence would clearly correspond to the seriousness of the offence, promote respect for the law, and provide just punishment for the offence.”
The filing also described Mr. Maynard as a hardworking entrepreneur and family man.
“Mr. Maynard was actively employed prior to his arrest,” it stated. “Mr. Maynard has always worked both in Tortola, BVI, and in the United States. Mr. Maynard ran Kravins Night Club & Sports Bar in Tortola; he owned Triple K Cleaning Services in Tortola; he managed Triple K Car Rental and Triple K Gourmet Catering in Tortola; he organised an event entertainment business and DJ service in Baltimore; and he worked in Lyft and Uber during the day in Baltimore.”
Additionally, Mr. Maynard is asking the court to apply a new sentencing guideline that is expected to take effect in the US in November.
That guideline, which was approved in April by the US Sentencing Commission, can reduce the sentence of certain first-time non-violent offenders — and it would apply to Mr. Maynard if it were already in effect, according to an Aug. 7 filing by Mr. Rodriguez.
Letters to the court
To demonstrate his remorse, Mr. Maynard also submitted letters from himself; his wife of five years, who is mother to his three older children; and the mother of his youngest child.
“I have four children, ages 16, 11, 4 and 1,” he wrote in his own letter. “I am asking as a desperate and broken father to allow me the chance to be in their lives and be there for them in every way as they grow. I am asking for any term other than imprisonment, whether it be probation or house confinement, so I can be able to assist with taking care of them as the mom struggle [sic] with their health issues and daily life.”
His wife, Sherisma Fahie-Maynard, made a similar appeal.
“My husband is one of the most loving, kind, cheerful, dependable, humorous, hardworking and family-oriented man that you would ever meet,” she wrote. “His love and desires for his family are beyond what words can describe.”
She also described the struggles of caring for the couple’s three children — 11- and 16-year-old daughters and a 4-year-old son — with Mr. Maynard behind bars.
A similar letter was provided by Daphne Adames, who was described in the filing as the mother of Mr. Maynard’s 1-year-old child.
“Kadeem would be the person I call when I find myself frustrated, when I receive excited or bad news or needed when at my weakest [sic],” she wrote. “Consequently, not having him around for the past year has been like reliving a nightmare repeatedly with no ending.”
Oleanvine Maynard
Ms. Maynard’s court docket does not include any similar filing criticising her pre-sentence investigation report.
She did, however, submit eight letters from character witnesses: her daughter, granddaughter, brother, sister, three nephews, and a St. Thomas acquaintance who misspelled her first name.
Daughter Karisma Maynard described her mother as a “huge part” of her life.
“I cannot remember a day that my mother wasn’t there for my children and I before her date of incarceration, and even now she still tries her best to keep in touch to make sure we are doing well,” the daughter wrote.
In apparent reference to the end of her mother’s tenure as labour commissioner in the early 2010s, she also described Ms. Maynard’s struggles after being “forced to retire” from government for “political reasons” a “few years ago.”
“After retiring, she decided to open a business of her own to be able to feed her family and pay her bills,” the daughter added. “As any new business, there were challenges in the beginning. Just as business was picking up, the country suffered the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria and thereafter the restraints of Covid-19.
“All these occurrences made it difficult for my mother to sustain the mortgage on her house, continue putting us through college and taking care of her family like any mother should all on her own.”
By the time Ms. Maynard was finally able to secure a job — presumably a leadership position at the BVIPA — her house was “in jeopardy,” the daughter wrote.
“I am sure the actions that led her to be before you were acts of desperation and not of pure intent,” she added. “This, to me, is the perfect example of poor decision-making. A learning experience even for me.”
Unlike her son, Ms. Maynard had not submitted a letter of her own to the court.
Fahie trial
Mr. Fahie, meanwhile, has continued to maintain his innocence and is scheduled for trial on Jan. 8 after three successful requests to delay the proceeding.
The Maynards’ guilty pleas, however, signalled bad news for him: Both Maynards agreed to cooperate with authorities, who could potentially require them to testify against Mr. Fahie.
This story has been corrected to reflect that Kadeem Maynard’s sentencing has not yet been rescheduled.