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Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Is One Charge Away From Emancipation Thanks to New Times
« Reply #150 on: May 20, 2014, 04:06:52 AM »
‘Buju’ warns T&T: Look out for scam
T&T Express.


Concert promoters in Trinidad and Tobago are being warned that they should not pay funds to an individual posing as the authorised agent for incarcerated reggae star, Buju Banton.

“A certain individual in Trinidad has approached promoters with the false claim that he is the local agent for renowned reggae musician Buju Banton. He has further sought to swindle monies by stating he is authorised to collect funds for a concert being held for Buju Banton in Trinidad during this year,” according to a joint statement issued by the Buju Banton Defence Support Committee and his attorney, Charles Ogletree.

“We wish to warn the public that it is totally untrue. Buju Banton has not given such rights to anyone in Trinidad. Nor is a concert being organised at this time,” the statement added.

Banton is currently serving a ten-year sentence on drug-related charges after he was arrested at his South Florida home in December 2009 and charged with conspiracy to distribute five or more kilogrammes of cocaine.

His arrest followed a sting operation at a Drug Enforcement Administration-controlled warehouse in Tampa, which also resulted in the arrest of James Mack and Ian Thomas, who were attempting to purchase cocaine from undercover agents.

After two trials Banton was sentenced in a Tampa, Florida court.

However, Ogletree filed a second appeal in the 11th US Circuit Court on February 4, claiming his client was denied a fair trial due to juror misconduct.

Banton has maintained his innocence and says he was entrapped by the US Government.

The attorney has warned that the person who is posing as an agent for the singer could face legal action if caught.

“Anyone seeking to do this would suffer legal consequences. We urge that you immediately inform the authorities of anyone who solicits monies from you for that purpose,” the release stated.

—CMC

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #151 on: May 20, 2014, 08:05:56 AM »
When did Charles Ogletree join this mix?

Offline Tallman

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Buju Banton avoids gun charge in new deal
« Reply #152 on: May 20, 2015, 09:38:58 AM »
Buju Banton avoids gun charge in new deal
By Patty Ryan (Tampa Bay Times)


The imprisoned reggae star known to the world as Buju Banton has made a deal with prosecutors that eliminates a pending gun charge and frees him in less than four years.

He'll quit filing appeals. In exchange, the United States will stop trying to hold him accountable for a gun carried by another man in the cocaine conspiracy that sent Banton away for a decade.

Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, could have faced an additional five years if convicted.

Instead, he will be deported to his native Jamaica after his scheduled January 2019 release from prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday in announcing the settlement, which was approved by U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. earlier this week.

Nearly two years ago, Moody threw out a 2011 conviction on the gun count after finding that a juror had inappropriately researched a legal theory relating to the charge.

Banton wanted the other verdicts tossed, too, but recently lost an appeal, returning the matter to Tampa.

Still unresolved? The fate of the juror, Terri Wright. Moody has asked a special prosecutor to explore whether a contempt charge is warranted. He is expected to be updated on the matter next week.

Banton is currently held at McRae Correctional Facility in McRae, Ga., according to the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator website.
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #153 on: January 08, 2016, 11:46:45 AM »
Buju Banton's 10-year sentence reduced
Jamaica Gleaner


United States (US) authorities appear to have shaved almost two months off the prison sentence of Jamaican Grammy Award-winning entertainer Buju Banton.

The US Federal Bureau of Prison indicated on its website yesterday that the artiste, whose given name is Mark Myrie, is to be released on December 8, 2018.

The Bureau of Prisons had originally indicated that Buju would be released from the McRae correctional institution in Atlanta, Georgia, in February 2019.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons told The Gleaner/Power 106 News Centre yesterday that she was not authorised to divulge information about an inmate.

Rosemary Duncan, coordinator of the Buju Banton Defence Support Committee, also declined to comment on the entertainer’s reduced sentence.

The reduced sentence comes months after the US Attorney’s Office in Florida announced an agreement in which it says the entertainer agreed to waive all future appeals of his 2011 conviction on cocaine distribution and conspiracy charges.

In return, prosecutors agreed to drop a firearms charge against him.

Buju was arrested in December 2009 and found guilty in February 2011.

He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Offline Peong

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #154 on: January 08, 2016, 12:21:36 PM »
2 months?  Sounds like almost nothing but I guess any reduction is good.
10 years is rough!

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #155 on: July 19, 2016, 07:19:01 AM »
Buju Banton in comments to the Jamaica Observer:

Quote
“I am already going to classes. I have passed the acceptance test and I will be studying political science and economics. I hope to get a master’s by the time I am released. I can do anything I put my mind to; you know that. I have balls of steel. People who know me know that I am very determined and will achieve my goals despite hardships. I will not allow the system to conquer me.”

Seeing reports online that suggest Buju has graduated with a graduate degree in Music Business from NYU's Steinhardt.

Offline soccerman

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #156 on: December 07, 2018, 08:12:32 PM »
He's a free man as of today.

Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #157 on: December 19, 2018, 12:11:27 PM »
IT'S official. Buju Banton's first major performance will be held on March 16 at National Stadium in St Andrew, Jamaica.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #158 on: December 21, 2018, 06:20:17 AM »
$2000-tickets for Buju's I am Legend concert
By Rachael Espinet (Newsday).


TICKETS for Buju Banton's concert I am Legend could cost patrons up to $2,000, and for that price the perks are limited drinks and food inclusive for this very very important person (VVIP) option.

Yesterday, event promoters High Frequency Entertainment announced tickets were officially on sale online and are only available via the website at www.iamlegendconcert.com.

The website states ticket prices are $400 for general admission, $1,000 for VIP and $2,000 for VVIP. Cabanas are also available upon request.

The I am Legend concert is scheduled to take place on April 21, 2019, at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain. A perfromance line-up is yet to be announced but promoters encourage fans to subscribe to their mailing list to stay updated.

Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, was released on December 8 after being incarcerated for seven-years at McRae Correctional Facility in Georgia, US, for conspiracy to possess cocaine in 2011.

A parade was held the day of his release in Port-of-Spain where scores of people celebrated the musician's release.

On December 9, all of Banton's official social media channels stated: "At this time and for the next few weeks, Buju will be spending time with family, friends and loved ones and has no plans of any public appearances. We would like to inform you that there has been no new music released by Buju Banton and absolutely no dubplate sessions set up as of now."

On December 12, High Frequency Entertainment posted pictures of Banton captioned, "Buju Banton is back in studio."

Banton's first concert after his release is the Long Walk to Freedom concert on March 16, 2019 at the National Stadium, Kingston, Jamaica. He will have a 90-minute set.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #159 on: March 27, 2019, 12:11:25 AM »
Buju stage changed.
By Melissa Doughty (Newsday).


HIGH Frequency Entertainment, organisers of the April 21 I Am Legend concert to be headlined by Buju Banton has changed the layout of the stage.

The new design shows the main stage with the VVIP area very close by, the VIP area behind and to the left of the VVIP area and the general admission area behind that. It also shows two audio systems positioned in the general area.

Behind the general area there is a section called general seating with “parliament seating” (for specially invited government officials) at the centre. This comes after concerns were raised on social media about the proposed layout of the stage. The original version showed the main stage set between the general area and the VIP and VVIP areas.

This caused some patrons to question whether they would actually be able to see Buju Banton, as his back would be towards one or other section of the audience at all times.

Questioned then about the proposed layout, High Frequency Entertainment issued a press release saying concertgoers would be completely satisfied with it.

The release went on, “We see, hear and acknowledge the questions raised by all prospective patrons...

“You can rest assured that all patrons will be completely satisfied with visibility of the stage and experience at the venue, on show night.”

The concert will be held at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain. This is Buju Banton’s first concert in T&T in over seven years. In 2011 he was charged and convicted in the US of illegal possession of a firearm and conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute. He was originally sentenced to ten years in jail, but his sentence was reduced to seven years when a judge dismissed the gun charge.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #160 on: April 18, 2019, 12:23:55 AM »
Buju can come to T&T
By Ryan Hamilton-Davis (Newsday).


Internationally acclaimed dancehall artist Buju Banton, who is set to headline the I Am Legend concert this weekend, has been given permission to enter the country.

Banton, along with Wayne Wonder and Luciano, was officially allowed in today, by order of National Security Minister Stuart Young, according to a tweet by the ministry.

Last Thursday, Young announced at a post -Cabinet press conference that Banton would have to apply for an exemption to enter T&T because of his criminal history. Banton was released from a US prison on December 7 after serving close seven years for a drug-related crime.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #161 on: April 23, 2019, 12:38:41 AM »
Griffith defends decision to appear on Buju’s stage
by Shaliza Hassanali (Guardian).


Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith yes­ter­day de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to ap­pear on stage dur­ing Bu­ju Ban­ton’s “I am Leg­end Con­cert” stat­ing if he had not done so it would have re­sult­ed in a strained re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Ja­maica.

Grif­fith’s com­ments came hours af­ter he was crit­i­cised on so­cial me­dia for ap­pear­ing at Ban­ton’s con­cert at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, stat­ing that he was just look­ing for fame and to score points.

Grif­fith, how­ev­er, in a What­sApp mes­sage to the me­dia on Mon­day, in­sist­ed that it was Ban­ton who re­quest­ed him on stage.

He crit­i­cised his de­trac­tors whom he de­scribed as im­ma­ture and ig­no­rant, in­sist­ing that he would not please in­di­vid­u­als who are jeal­ous or have tun­nel vi­sion, but rather those who are pa­tri­ot­ic, pos­sess hu­mil­i­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and would put coun­try first.

On Sat­ur­day, the Ja­maican’s reg­gae star room at the Hilton Trinidad room was searched by mem­bers of the Or­gan­ised Crime and In­tel­li­gence Unit (OCIU).

In re­sponse, Ban­ton ques­tioned the va­lid­i­ty of the search af­ter the po­lice left emp­ty-hand­ed.

This in­ci­dent, Grif­fith said “was set to cause a ma­jor rift be­tween our coun­try and Ja­maica. This was be­cause of a poor pro­ce­dure by the TTPS in the con­duct of the search. Hence the TTPS may have been di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for such a rift,” Grif­fith stat­ed.

Grif­fith has since an­nounced a ma­jor over­haul of the OCIU fol­low­ing the raid.

He said the of­fi­cers did not car­ry out prop­er sur­veil­lance be­fore act­ing.

Hours af­ter the in­ci­dent, Grif­fith met with the reg­gae singer where he apol­o­gised and gave the as­sur­ance that the re­main­der of Ban­ton’s vis­it will be peace­ful and in­ci­dent-free.

Dur­ing the con­cert, Grif­fith promised Ban­ton that T&T and Ja­maica would re­main “al­lies for­ev­er.”

Grif­fith al­so ad­vised those who were more con­cerned about na­tion­al pop­u­lar­i­ty to put their en­er­gies where it can be bet­ter val­ued.

“Had I not done this, re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries could have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed.

“Pos­si­ble boy­cotts of our prod­ucts and oth­er pri­vate sec­tor sanc­tions were al­so on the ta­ble. If oth­ers are not aware or care about this due to ego over com­mon sense, I can­not help that.”

If his ac­tions af­fect­ed some peo­ple but helped to bridge the gap be­tween the two Caribbean coun­tries, Grif­fith said he felt sor­ry for them.

“I did what was need­ed to be done. Not to please those who have noth­ing bet­ter to do oth­er than crit­i­cise due to their in­abil­i­ty to un­der­stand the big­ger pic­ture.

“If oth­ers are up­set, then they should re­port it to the en­ter­tain­ment po­lice.”


Police Commissioner Gary Griffith appears on stage with Jamaica reggae artiste Buju Banton at the I Am Legend concert at the Queen’s Park Savannah on Sunday.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #162 on: April 24, 2019, 12:41:33 AM »
Mixed views over Gary’s stint on Buju stage
by Rishard Khan (Guardian).


There are mixed views among var­i­ous stake­hold­ers about the ra­tio­nale giv­en by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith for his ap­pear­ance on stage with Ja­maican reg­gae icon Mark “Bu­ju Ban­ton” Myrie at the “I am Leg­end Con­cert” on Sun­day, 24 hours af­ter po­lice raid­ed Ban­ton’s ho­tel room.

Grif­fith’s ap­pear­ance on stage con­cert raised some eye­brows in sev­er­al quar­ters. Fol­low­ing crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia, Grif­fith re­leased a state­ment say­ing his ac­cep­tance of Ban­ton’s of­fer to ap­pear on stage was to mit­i­gate any neg­a­tive ef­fects from the raid and pre­vent a pos­si­ble rift be­tween Ja­maica and T&T.

“To those who do not un­der­stand the ac­cep­tance of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and pa­tri­o­tism, had I not done this, re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries could have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ed; pos­si­ble boy­cotts of our prod­ucts and oth­er pri­vate sec­tor sanc­tions were al­so on the ta­ble,” Grif­fith said.

“If my ac­tions af­fect­ed some but it helped bridge the gap be­tween our coun­try and a close al­ly Ja­maica, then I feel sor­ry for those who I may have hurt, how­ev­er, I did what was need­ed to be done. In fact, I did not put my­self on stage; Bu­ju re­quest­ed it.”

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue, Charge d’Af­faires at the Ja­maican High Com­mis­sion Deli­ta Mc­Cal­lum, who was at the meet­ing be­tween Ban­ton and Grif­fith on Sat­ur­day night, said that all is­sues were sort­ed out.

“The com­mis­sion­er came and he met with Mr Bu­ju Ban­ton and he made a pub­lic state­ment and I think the mat­ter has been re­solved. We don’t have any par­tic­u­lar views on the mat­ter. We met as a team and we re­solved the is­sues and we’re con­fi­dent things have been…nor­malised,” Mc­Cal­lum said told Guardian Me­dia.

“We re­solved it in a diplo­mat­ic man­ner…we were sat­is­fied the mat­ter had been re­solved at that mo­ment. We can­not speak to what tran­spired af­ter­wards.”

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so weighed in on the is­sue as he at­tend­ed the an­nu­al Goat and Crab Races in To­ba­go, say­ing he be­lieved Grif­fith han­dled the sit­u­a­tion well.

But for­mer di­rec­tor of the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Bryan, said the premise of Grif­fith’s stage ap­pear­ance was not en­tire­ly ac­cu­rate as there aren’t any cur­rent ten­sions be­tween the coun­tries.

“There is no rea­son for any of that to hap­pen. There are no sus­pend­ed is­sues of dis­agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries where you could be in­flu­enced by the fact that a reg­gae artiste had his room ran­sacked by mis­take. It does not en­ter in­to the sphere of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions at all,” Bryan said.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pub­lic re­la­tions ex­pert Nicole Duke-West­field, who was at the con­cert on Sun­day and wit­nessed the CoP’s stage ap­pear­ance, said she per­son­al­ly be­lieved it to be a PR stunt to ben­e­fit both men.

“From my per­spec­tive, it seems as if it was a pub­lic re­la­tions at­tempt, not just by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, but...if I were man­ag­ing Bu­ju Ban­ton’s rep­u­ta­tion and if I were part of his mar­ket­ing team and my artiste is em­bark­ing up­on a glob­al tour to re-es­tab­lish him­self around the world…it would cer­tain­ly be to my ben­e­fit if an in­ci­dent where his room was searched was sub­se­quent­ly put to bed by none oth­er than the then po­lice com­mis­sion­er of po­lice - the most se­nior per­son in the po­lice ser­vice.”

How­ev­er, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) be­lieves Grif­fith did the right thing.

In a What­sapp mes­sage, TTMA pres­i­dent Fran­ka Costel­loe told Guardian Me­dia: “…giv­en the pa­tri­ot­ic and proud na­ture of Ja­maicans, this pos­si­ble fall out from the raid on Mr Ban­ton’s room is a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty. In this re­gard, we are thank­ful that this mis­un­der­stand­ing and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what tran­spired has been re­solved in an ap­pro­pri­ate and time­ly fash­ion and both par­ties have moved on from it.”

Costel­loe said Ja­maica re­mains a trad­ing part­ner for T&T in the re­gion and num­ber one over­all for all non-en­er­gy prod­ucts.

“T&T not on­ly views Ja­maica as an im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner for ex­ports, but we al­so im­port a sig­nif­i­cant amount of goods from Ja­maica as well. Fur­ther in­vest­ment flows be­tween both coun­tries are good, with lots of busi­ness­es from both coun­tries in­vest­ing.”

Present­ly, she said the re­la­tion­ship the coun­tries share is cour­te­ous and “we do hope they would re­main so and there would be no an­ti-Trinidad sen­ti­ments re­sult­ing in the faux pas with Bu­ju Ban­ton.”

TT Cham­ber of Com­merce CEO Gabriel Faria al­so said he would have to give Grif­fith his sup­port on the mat­ter

“I know that in the past there have been is­sues be­tween Trinidad and Ja­maica pri­mar­i­ly on the move­ment of peo­ple. Now just to be clear, this has hap­pened years ago where some Ja­maicans, un­der the CSME, might have been com­ing in­to Trinidad and they might have had some is­sues and that may have caused some neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty,” Faria said.

“How­ev­er, I saw the com­mis­sion­er’s state­ment and if he felt he need­ed to do it, I will give him the ben­e­fit of the doubt be­cause it was based on more than just the trade is­sue.”

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

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Re: Buju Banton Thread
« Reply #163 on: November 27, 2019, 10:38:48 AM »
Thoughts on the new Buju release "Steppa"?

 

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