Buju Banton’s 10-Year Sentence Reduced

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.

story credit: jamaica gleaner