Oleanvine Pickering Maynard, the former managing director of the British Virgin Islands Ports Authority, was sentenced in Miami Thursday to more than nine years in prison for her role in a plot to ship at least 3,000 kilograms of cocaine from Tortola to Miami, prosecutors said.
In a deal with prosecutors, Pickering Maynard, 62, pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to import more than five kilograms of cocaine. Money laundering and racketeering charges were dropped as she agreed to testify against her former boss, then BVI-Premier Andrew Fahie.
Pickering Maynard and her son, Kadeem Maynard, pleaded guilty in May 2023. Fahie was found guilty by a Miami jury in February of conspiracy to import more than five kilograms of cocaine, conspiracy to engage in money laundering, attempted money laundering, and foreign travel in aid of racketeering.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams sentenced Pickering Maynard to nine years and four months behind bars plus five years of supervised release, according to federal prosecutors. The sentence was less than the 14-year maximum. Kadeem Maynard was sentenced to 57 months in prison in November.
Fahie, 53, who is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 5, argued earlier this month that he had a relatively minor role in the smuggling plot compared to Pickering Maynard’s, who was supposed to get required licenses for cocaine-laden ships to gain legitimacy by spending a few days in the British overseas territory.
The pair were arrested at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport on April 28, 2022, after stepping off a private jet they thought contained $700,000 as pre-payment for a first cocaine shipment, prosecutors said. That same day, Maynard was arrested on St. Thomas, where prosecutors said he expected to receive his first payment.
Evidence presented at trial included text messages, WhatsApp communications, and more than 8,000 minutes of secretly recorded audio tape on which the three enthusiastically agreed to make Tortola a major narcotics throughpoint. On those recordings, Fahie, a fixture in BVI politics since 1999, bragged about decades of ill deeds and gave the name of at least one smuggler that he considered like family. Fahie, represented by attorney Theresa Van Vliet, contended that he believed he was being “framed” by U.K. officials in a bid to remove him from office and that he intended to have the cash-laden jet seized when it landed in Tortola.
