Al Miller could get three years, pay $1 million
He has already been found guilty of perverting the course of justice, so clergyman Rev Merrick “Al” Miller awaits a September sentencing to determine whether or not he will escape a prison sentence for a second time.
Miller was first convicted in 2011 on a charge of negligence, in relation to his licensed firearm that went missing from his car, after he said he had stopped to pick plums for his daughter.
At that time he was fined $80,000, which if not paid would have resulted in him serving three months in prison. Miller appealed his conviction and the fine, but it was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Now he awaits his date before Parish Judge Simone Wolfe-Reece after he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice in relation to the apprehension of then fugitive Christopher “Dudus” Coke in 2010.
Under Jamaican law, the maximum sentence handed down to persons found guilty of perverting the course of justice in a Parish Court, formerly Resident Magistrate’s Court, is three years. That sentence may also be accompanied by a fine not exceeding $1 million.
The head of the Fellowship Tabernacle in St Andrew could also be fined and given a suspended sentence, one legal sources told the
Jamaica Observer.
However, the source said, the fact that Rev Miller has had a previous conviction, things may go against him.
Miller was found guilty by Wolfe-Reece in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on July 22.
The clergyman was arrested and charged in 2010 after being found on Mandela Highway, St Catherine, in the company of Coke, who was wanted in the United States to answer to drug and gun-running charges.
Throughout the trial, Rev Miller maintained that he was escorting Coke to the United States Embassy in St Andrew so that he could surrender to authorities there, based on an agreement with then Police Commissioner Owen Ellington. However, Sergeant Winston Radcliff testified that Miller, driving with Coke aboard, led the police on a high-speed chase along the busy thoroughfare.