Christopher M. Coke, the Jamaican drug lord whose extradition to the United States in 2010 followed a furious manhunt in his homeland that led to the deaths of more than 70 people, was sentenced on Friday in Manhattan to 23 years in prison, the maximum he faced.
Mr. Coke, 43, had pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy; at the time, he admitted that he led an organization called the Presidential Click, which distributed crack cocaine and other drugs in Jamaica and the United States, and also obtained guns from the United States for his men.
Prosecutors charged that Mr. Coke’s force was about 200 armed “soldiers.” He was based in Tivoli Gardens, a garrison community in Kingston, where he enforced his own brutal disciplinary code and was so powerful that he enjoyed “virtual immunity from the reach of law enforcement,” they added.
