'El Chapo' brother of ex-Liverpool footballer thinks jail sentence was too long
A man sentenced with his ex-Liverpool FC footballer brother lost his appeal against the jail term he considered too harsh - Jonathan Cassidy likened himself to drug baron 'El Chapo'
A man who likened himself to drug baron 'El Chapo' has lost an appeal against his sentence. Jonathan Cassidy played a leading role in an international drug plot which saw cocaine imported from the Netherlands and used to supply users across north-west England, Birmingham and Leeds.
He ran the racket with younger brother Jamie, a former Liverpool FC footballer, and business partner Nasar Ahmed. Together, the operation dealt with 356kg of the drug, worth around £26million, with £10million in cash changing hands in the space of three months, Manchester Crown Court heard last year. In court, prosecutors said Cassidy had sent an associate a picture of the actor who played drug lord Joaquin Guzma, AKA 'El Chapo' in the Netflix TV series Narcos. He also joked they had the same birthday.
Jonathan Cassidy was slapped with a sentence of 21 years and nine months in March last year. He admitted importing drugs, conspiring to supply drugs and conspiring to transfer criminal property the previous month.
His lawyers lodged a claim that the sentencing judge gave him insufficient credit for his guilty pleas and that not enough weight was given to mitigating factors. But three judges dismissed the challenge in a ruling published on Monday.
Lord Justice Fraser, Mr Justice Hilliard and Mr Justice Constable said they were 'not persuaded' that the sentence was 'manifestly excessive or reached after an error of principle'. They also dismissed an appeal bid brought by Cassidy's co-defendant, Nasar Ahmed, who admitted the same offences and received the same jail term.
Cassidy played a 'leading role' in drugs importation and the buying and selling of class A drugs while Ahmed acted as a middleman and 'facilitator', transferring vast sums of cash to buy and sell on drugs, prosecutor Richard Wright KC told Manchester Crown Court.
After the encrypted EncroChat network used by Cassidy and Ahmed was compromised by law enforcement agencies - Cassidy used the name 'WhiskyWasp' - Cassidy travelled to Dubai in July 2020 and inquired with estate agents about purchasing a villa with a budget of £2.3million, including a £22,000 bed. He travelled back to the UK in October that year, but was arrested upon his return.
The EncroChat data showed Cassidy had imported cocaine for the first time in early March 2020. This was a whopping 194kg of the drugs and was imported into the country in blocks embossed with snowmen, Liverpool Echo reports.
Cassidy was sentenced alongside his younger brother, Jamie Cassidy, a former Liverpool football prodigy who played alongside Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen in the Liverpool side that won the FA Youth Cup in 1996. Jamie Cassidy received a sentence of 13 years and three months for conspiring to supply drugs and conspiring to transfer criminal property, after prosecutors said he was 'drawn in' to crime by his older brother.
Speaking after their initial sentencing in February last year, detective constable Marc Walby from Greater Manchester Police's serious organised crime group said: "Jonathan Cassidy and his colleagues got far too comfortable with their encrypted phones and began bragging about their personal lives, but this just confirmed what we already knew about them. Ironically, it was this bravado and these messages which have landed them in jail for a long time."
Dismissing Jonathan Cassidy and Ahmed's appeals, Lord Justice Fraser said that both knew 'what their conduct had been and the degree to which it was unlawful'. He continued that despite defendants in other EncroChat cases being given greater credit for guilty pleas, there was 'no one single 'EncroChat discount'' that should be applied.
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