By LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Chief Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
UNITED States federal prosecutors believe they named the wrong man in a cocaine trafficking case that has grabbed local headlines, mistakenly identifying a Bahamian as the target in a trafficking scheme allegedly involving several Bahamians.
Theodore Nathaniel Adderley, aka “Blue”, is among 11 Bahamians named in a federal indictment unsealed last year, accusing them of playing key roles in a transnational cocaine trafficking operation that facilitated the flow of drugs into the US.
Court documents state that Adderley was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charges. A Brady warning was also issued, referring to the prosecution’s constitutional duty to disclose all material, exculpatory evidence to the defence in a criminal case, regardless of whether the defendant requests it.
However, in a letter filed Monday to US District Judge Gregory H Woods, court-appointed attorney Benjamin Silverman — assigned to represent Adderley — revealed what he called an “unusual development” after discovering that the man in custody is not Adderley, but Ulrique Jean Baptiste.
According to the attorney, Jean Baptiste was arrested in the Dominican Republic on March 24, transferred to US custody on April 2, and arraigned in New York two days later.
At that hearing, Jean Baptiste denied being Adderley and committing the offences, and officials at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn later confirmed his identity, presumably by using fingerprint records.
Mr Silverman said he learned of the situation on Saturday when he couldn’t locate his client. The government then informed him by email that his client was being held under the name Ulrique Jean Baptiste — not Theodore Nathaniel Adderley.
The attorney said he spoke several times with an Assistant United States attorney, who explained that the investigation involved someone known as “Blue.”
Prosecutors initially believed “Blue’s” real name was Theodore Nathaniel Adderley, but now acknowledge that may have been a mistake, according to the attorney.
“The government indicted Theodore Nathaniel Adderley, who I understand to be a real person. The government then arrested Ulrique Jean Baptiste, who is not named in the indictment,” Mr Silverman wrote.
“It is the government’s view that the person who they meant to arrest, who they knew as ‘Blue,’ is in fact ‘Ulrique Jean Baptiste,’ not the person who the grand jury voted to indict, Theodore Nathaniel Adderley.”
To support this claim, Mr Silverman said the government provided a DEA report referring to an investigation target named “Theodore Adderley.”
However, he noted that the government had a photograph of the real Adderley, but apparently couldn’t distinguish him from Jean Baptiste.
While the government now believes Jean Baptiste is “Blue,” Silverman pointed out the problem: the grand jury indicted another man, Adderley, and described him as “Blue.”
He said if the grand jury did not vote to indict Baptiste, the charges should be dismissed, and his client must be released.
“The government arrested a different man than the one named in the Indictment,” he wrote. “For this reason, there would appear to be no lawful basis to detain Ulrique Jean Baptiste, who has already been in custody for 15 days since he was arrested in the Dominican Republic on March 24.”
“It is essential to find out immediately if the grand jury even considered evidence that Ulrique Jean Baptiste, the man now under arrest, committed a crime. If it did not vote to indict Ulrique Jean Baptiste, then he must be released, and the case against him dismissed.”
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