Last fall, the blue-chip law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips signed a $400,000
contract to lobby on behalf of the government of Jamaica, spending the next
several months talking with the White House and other administration officials
about why the United States should not extradite an accused Kingston drug
kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
According to Justice Department records filed under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act (FARA), Manatt signed the contract to represent the government of Jamaica on
Oct. 1, about a month after Coke's indictment was unsealed in the U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York.
The unusual arrangement has fallen apart amid a flurry of charges and counter
charges that have reverberated from Kingston to Washington. The government
of Jamaica claims it never hired Manatt; the attorney who arranged the deal says
it was all a big misunderstanding; and opposition leaders allege that Jamaica's
prime minister was doing the bidding of a fugitive the United States wants to arrest.
The controversy has rocked Jamaican politics and further strained the Caribbean
nation's relations with the Obama administration, which has grown increasingly
frustrated in its attempts to bring the alleged drug dealer, Christopher "Dudus"
Coke, to New York for trial. The country's prime minister, Bruce Golding, has led
efforts to resist Coke's extradition, arguing that the efforts to bring him to this
country are based on illegal drug and gun charges.
Some Jamaican officials and celebrities have accused the United States of retaliating
for Kingston's lack of cooperation by denying U.S. visas to a series of reggae performers
and student track athletes; U.S. officials say politics played no role in the refusals.