Noel Blackman for February sentencing
The sentencing of former Minister of Health, Dr. Noel Blackman, has been pushed back for a month because of the unavailability of a New York court.
Instead of being sentenced in the first week of the coming year, on January 6th, Blackman will now have to appear on February 10th, before Judge Joanna Seybert. Blackman, who served under the Desmond Hoyte led-People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) administration, had signaled his intentions back in August to change his plea on charges relating to the dealing of drugs. In court documents filed in a New York court, Blackman, who was arrested in February, last, as he was about to board a JFK airport flight to Guyana, said that he had managed to reach a plea agreement with the US prosecutors. The doctor was arrested while on his way to Guyana after being named as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). Federal authorities took the 68-year-old doctor into custody after they ordered a Guyana-bound jet, taxiing for takeoff, to return to an airport terminal. Prior to his arrest, investigators had the doctor and his Brooklyn office under surveillance for weeks. The David Granger administration subsequently named Dr. Carl ‘Max’ Hanoman as the new GPHC Chairman. Prosecutors said that Blackman had illegally prescribed vast amounts of a painkiller drugs in what has been described as a “drugdealing enterprise spanning three States.”
According to court documents, Judge Joanna Seybert, in allowing the application for the doctor to change his plea, also agreed for him to cancel a status hearing on the case, which was scheduled for Monday. Blackman is coowner of the Hoyte Blackman Television (HBTV- Channel Nine) station locally. The doctor and his assistant, Eva Torres, 31, of the Bronx, were indicted on two counts: conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and distribution of a controlled substance. Prosecutors had signaled intentions to seize Blackman’s assets that would have come from the illegal activities.
(Kaieteurnews.com)