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Simels visits parents’ grave one day ahead of sentencing
…as prosecutors seek life imprisonment
Embattled United States defence attorney, Robert Simels, yesterday visited the grave site of his parents two days before a Federal Judge sentences him and his assistant Arienne Irving for witness tampering and possessing an illegal wiretapping equipment.
Robert Simels
Simels, the former lead attorney of Guyanese drug trafficker Shaheed ‘Roger Khan’, could be jailed for life tomorrow after prosecutors objected to his request for a minimum sentence.
He visited his parents’ grave site at Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Vahalla, New York for two hours between noon and 2:00 pm after judge John Gleeson granted the request.
Prosecutors have also objected to the court granting Simels bail pending his expected appeal of the conviction and sentence.
They are seeking to a sentence between 30 months and life.
The US Government has agreed that the sentence guideline is appropriate and that a custodial sentence should be imposed. Additionally, they are urging the court to deny Simels bail pending his appeal and order that he begin serving his sentence immediately after it is handed down.
His assistant, Arienne Irving, is seeking a non-custodial sentence.
The evidence throughout the four-week trial showed that Simels and Irving tried to use their client’s Guyana-based criminal organisation to identify, locate and tamper with individuals who they believed were potential witnesses in the Khan,s trial.
Beginning May 13, last year, Simels and Irving repeatedly communicated with Selwyn Vaughn, a former member of Khan’s criminal organisation.
They asked Vaughn to testify on Khan’s behalf and requested that he see about other things.
Over the course of several months the defendants coordinated with Vaughn on a range of options including offering witnesses money, and performing acts of violence against them and their family members to prevent them from testifying against their client Khan.
Unknown to the defendants Vaughn was cooperating with US law enforcers and he recorded the meetings during which Simels and Irving focused their attention on another cooperating witness, David Clarke.
Clarke was a former senior officer of the Guyana Defence Force.
On June 20 Simels gave Vaughn US$1,000 to start the plan.
They agreed to pay Clarke’s girlfriend, Leslyn Comacho, US$10,000 to give false evidence at Khan’s trial.
Vaughn agreed to have Comacho collect half of the money on September 10, but agents arrived at the office and arrested Simels.
The prosecution has found that Simels’s arguments for a lighter sentence has no merit.
Simels had contended that since Khan got 15 years after pleading guilty, a sentence of 33 to 41 months should be granted to him.
But the prosecution argued that what Simels ignored, is that there marked differences which make his conduct more egregious and worthy of a stiffer sentence.
Simels’s argument was also supported by letters from fellow attorneys like his colleague Diarmuid White, who represented Khan with Simels.
White wrote that he was wholly unaware of Simels’s obstructive conduct in the case until Simels was arrested.
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