The mother and son serving prison time for conspiring with then-premier Andrew Fahie to import cocaine into the United States in 2022 are now set to be released several years early.
Former BVI Ports Authority Managing Director Oleanvine Maynard, who was sentenced to nine years and five months, will be freed tomorrow after less than three years behind bars, according to the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Her son Kadeem Maynard is set to be released on April 1 after serving just under three years of his five-year-and-nine month sentence.
US officials have not explained the early releases, but experts told the Beacon that the dramatic reductions may suggest the application of a federal rule that allows large discounts for defendants who cooperate with authorities.
“If [a person’s] cooperation after sentencing leads to the arrest or prosecution of another person, then there is a separate provision — it’s known colloquially as Rule 35 because it’s Rule 35 of the federal rules of criminal procedure,” said former federal public defender Raquel Wilson, who is now a law professor at the University of Kentucky. “Under a Rule 35 motion that the prosecutor files, then the court can consider that motion and reduce the person’s sentence, often to a sentence that is recommended by the government.”
Ms. Wilson and other experts told the Beacon that good behaviour and participation in recidivism-reducing programmes can also bring sentence discounts, but they wouldn’t explain a reduction as dramatic as Ms. Maynard’s or her son’s.
“The other explanations like reduction for good conduct and that kind of thing, that wouldn’t explain a six- or seven-year reduction in a sentence,” Ms. Wilson explained. “The maximum discount is nowhere near that percentage in terms of good conduct and programmes.”
Ms. Wilson added that such discounts were unlikely to add up to such an early release for Mr. Maynard either.
Though she wasn’t familiar with the details of the Maynards’ case, she noted that “cooperation is not uncommon” in cases involving drug-trafficking allegations.
“It certainly could be the case that it explains the substantial discount here,” she said.
Ms. Wilson also told the Beacon that “it’s hard to say” if it is a coincidence that the Maynards are to be released within less than two weeks of each other.
“It wouldn’t be terribly unusual for the government to reach some sort of agreement with [Ms. Maynard] that assists the son in also getting some kind of leniency,” she said. “Because if she is a valuable witness to them, then, you know, it’s certainly possible that she could trade her knowledge for some benefit to presumably a close family member who was also involved.”
Before Ms. Maynard was sentenced, she testified against Mr. Fahie at his trial, where he was found guilty. If her cooperation in that matter was complete before her sentencing, she may have received a discount at that stage, Ms. Wilson said.
“But if she continued to cooperate against others, then she could get that post-sentencing reduction,” she explained.
Ms. Maynard is currently in the custody of RRM Baltimore, a residential reentry management field office that operates halfway houses, and her son is being held at the Miami Federal Detention Centre, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida told the Beacon that “The Clerk’s Office has no information beyond what is available in the public docket.” Ms. Maynard’s attorney, federal public defender D’Arsey Houlihan, didn’t respond to the Beacon’s request for comment on the Maynards’ early release.
Mr. Maynard’s attorney Rafael Rodriguez declined to comment.
During Mr. Fahie’s trial in February 2024, Ms. Maynard testified for the prosecution, explaining in detail how she had been approached by three “Arab” men in the VI.
She said the men sought to arrange a meeting between her and an “investor” purportedly named Roberto Quintero, who was looking to do business in the VI and wanted to know how goods moved in and out of the territory’s ports.
On March 30, 2022, Ms. Maynard and her son had lunch with Mr. Quintero — who was an informant for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration — at the Greenhouse Restaurant & Bar in St. Thomas, according to her testimony.
There, Mr. Quintero described himself as a Sinaloa Cartel member who wanted to move cocaine through the VI, Ms. Maynard said.
She offered to help him conduct his business by arranging for her son to obtain a trade licence as a shipping agent, which would allow him to help facilitate drug-laden vessels’ passage in and out of the VI without interference, she said.
The trio also discussed a “side deal” through which Mr. Maynard would receive cocaine to be sold in the VI, according to her testimony.
In April 2022, the Maynards and Mr. Fahie were arrested. The Maynards later pleaded guilty. Mr. Fahie, who has maintained his innocence and plans to appeal, was found guilty last year and sentenced to 11 years and three months in federal prison.
