HUNTER: Dope kingpin thought U.S. judges were like ours. He was wrong
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Convicted drug kingpin Khaophone Sychantha was 100% certain he didn’t need a lawyer.
Hell, he didn’t even need a defence.
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HUNTER: Dope kingpin thought U.S. judges were like ours. He was wrong Back to video
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The way the 43-year-old Laotian-Canadian man sees it: He will be exonerated by appellate courts in Michigan. He argues he never should have been extradited to the U.S. in the first place.
Sychantha wants the courts to kick his sentence to the curb. In a motion filed in April, the Windsor-area drug trafficker claimed he was … kidnapped from Canada and brought to the U.S. without an extradition hearing.
The alumna of Homeland Security’s 10 Most Wanted list appears geographically illiterate. His trial was held in Detroit. Not Vancouver. Not Toronto. Not Brampton.
In those places, too many judges would have been ready, willing and able to swallow hook, line and sinker nearly any sob story before them.
Not so the United States.
As reported by The Detroit News, Sychantha was sentenced to 20 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon, Jr. said in a statement. He was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release after his two-decade prison sentence.
Following that, the States will deport him back to Canada. Lucky us.
What Gorgon said (and it needs to be heard by every Canadian politician) is this: “In order to be a nation, we must have secure borders. Americans need to be protected from transnational criminals dumping their dangerous drugs into our communities.”
Amen.
Sychantha was convicted in a jury trial last October of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, ecstasy, and N-benzylpiperazine, or BZP, possession of methamphetamine, ecstasy, and BZP with intent to distribute, and possession of ecstasy and BZP with intent to distribute after a six-day trial.
The convicted man has maintained his innocence. It truly is a travesty! Call Amnesty!
And as if his kidnapping wasn’t enough, Sychantha added he didn’t have the mental capacity to conduct a proper defence without the assistance of a lawyer.
He claimed (and I’m not kidding) that the court, by “allowing him to represent himself, made a mockery of the judicial system.” Remember: He didn’t want a lawyer.
No, I would say it’s our old friend Mr. Sychantha attempting to make a “mockery” of the system.
The feds alleged that the enterprising immigrant oversaw a massive dope peddling ring that transported pills from Canada into the U.S. Tens of thousands of dollars in illicit profit returned here over the Ambassador Bridge between 2003 and 2011.
He was arrested and indicted in 2005. Sychantha was then hammered with a superseding indictment in 2013.
Of course, there were the entanglements with the Canadian justice system. Sychantha had been arrested and charged in three separate criminal cases here but got out of Dodge in 2014 while under, ahem, house arrest.
He was accused of assaulting a cop in Montreal in 2017 and was arrested. Sychantha was extradited to Detroit in 2023.
“This sentencing brings Sychantha’s cross-border criminal enterprise to a fitting end,” said Jared Murphey, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations’ Detroit Office.
“ICE HSI will continue to collaborate with our partners to disrupt and dismantle international drug trafficking operations that seek to poison our communities.”
Khaophone Sychantha did indeed need a lawyer.
Or at the very least, a compliant Canadian judge who would have allowed him to skate one more time.
For old times’ sake.
@HunterTOSun
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