Former Tivoli strongman transferred to minimum security prison
Jamaican drug tycoon Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke has been transferred to a low-security prison with “no bars, towers, or locks” to complete his 23-year prison sentence in the United States.
The US Bureau of Prisons has confirmed that Coke had been transferred to the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in New Jersey.
Fort Dix FCI currently houses just over 4,000 male inmates. According to its admission and orientation handbook for inmates, which has been published on the Internet, the facility has “no bars, towers, or locks on the rooms located within the community units. Inmates must demonstrate a high degree of responsibility and the expectations are that each inmate will comply.”
This is the third institution to house the former Tivoli Gardens strongman since he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in a New York federal court in 2011.
Coke was first incarcerated at the high-security Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York, immediately after he was extradited from Jamaica, and remained there for a while after his conviction.
Some 73 persons, including a member of the Jamaica Defence Force, were killed in West Kingston in May 2010 as armed hoodlums loyal to Coke took on the security forces for over two days to prevent his arrest and extradition. He was extradited to the US one month later.
In 2013, Coke was transferred from New York to the Edgefield FCI, located near the border of South Carolina and Georgia.
The Fort Dix FCI said that the average age of inmates at the facility is 41, while the average sentence is 11 years.
A number of FCI inmates are listed as being deportable aliens.
Coke is scheduled to be released on July 4, 2030, according to the US Bureau of Prisons.
His younger brother, Leighton ‘Livity’ Coke, was recently shot and injured at the Hellshire Beach in St. Catherine parish.
