A sentence, shortened by time
On Tuesday, inside a federal courtroom in Manhattan, Darrin Roker rose to his feet when the judge invited him to speak. He wore a tan, prison-issue uniform. Shackles circled his ankles, according to reporting by The Tribune.
Roker, a former chief petty officer in the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, told the court that his cancer had become a “monster.” Some days, he said, he sleeps for as long as twenty-three hours. Standing before the judge, he asked for “another chance,” to return home to his family.
“That’s all I can ask, and thank God,” Roker said. “I want a chance to go back home to my family. I have lost everything in the Bahamas–my job, my pension. I have nothing else but my family.”
Roker was sentenced to four years in a United States prison after admitting that he used his position of trust to assist drug traffickers linked to a conspiracy that moved more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine through the Bahamas and into the United States. Prosecutors said he provided sensitive law-enforcement information, including intelligence shared by the U.S. Coast Guard and OPBAT, in exchange for bribes.
The judge described the offences as extremely serious. Under federal guidelines, Roker had faced a significantly longer sentence. But the court also heard extensive medical evidence showing that his prostate cancer had returned aggressively and was now terminal. His PSA levels, filings said, had increased fourfold.
Roker is dying.
As the proceedings unfolded, Roker smiled briefly at his wife, seated in the gallery. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue throughout the hearing. Two other family members sat nearby.
In court, his attorney, Martin Roth, acknowledged his client’s guilt. “He was weak,” Roth said. “He wasn’t himself. In that moment of weakness, he joined the conspiracy and took the $20, 000,” according to The Tribune. Roth also pointed to Roker bending to pressures, operating in ‘a culture long affected by drug trafficking and corruption.’
Roker pleaded guilty in October, becoming the first of thirteen defendants to do so in a wide-ranging case that implicated senior law-enforcement officials of the Royal Bahamas Police Force—Chief Superintendent Elvis Curtis and a sergeant. His cooperation and his medical condition weighed heavily in the court’s final decision.
*Courtroom details in this report are drawn from reporting by The Tribune.
