Judge backs letting driver in cocaine bust serve sentence in Canada
Clark County District Judge Kathleen Delaney said Thursday she was willing to let a Quebec truck driver nabbed in a big Interstate 15 cocaine bust serve his 6- to 15-year prison sentence in Canada.
Attorneys for Gaston Danjou told Delaney they intend to ask Nevada state prison officials and the U.S. Justice Department to invoke an international prisoner transfer treaty in Danjou's case.
"The court is open to the idea," Delaney said, after noting that Danjou speaks only French and has no personal or family ties to Nevada.
Danjou, 52, said nothing as he stood in shackles next to a French language interpreter. He has been in custody since August, when police reported finding 452 pounds of cocaine in duffel bags in the cab of his big rig truck on I-15 near the Nevada-California state line.
Danjou pleaded guilty in December to a reduced felony drug trafficking charge, admitting possession of just less than 28 ounces of cocaine. The reduced amount allowed the judge to consider a sentence less than life in prison, defense lawyer James Oronoz said.
Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney in Washington, D.C., said 52 U.S. prisoners transferred to Canada in 2011 and 44 in 2010.
The United States has bilateral prisoner transfer treaties with Canada and 11 other countries including France, Mexico, Bolivia, Panama, Peru, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Hong Kong, Thailand and Turkey.
The U.S. also takes part in transfers with dozens of other countries under two multilateral treaties: the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and the Inter-American Convention on Serving Criminal Sentences Abroad.
