Man Sues Caribbean Airlines, Says He Was Framed With Cocaine
Is he another in the long line of naughty passengers on airplanes?
Or was he set up?
New York City resident Simeon Wilson has filed a lawsuit against Caribbean Airlines, claiming he was framed in 2018 when authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport found cocaine in his suitcase after he returned from a trip to see his father in his native Guyana, according to the New York Post.
The suit stated that Wilson didn’t notice someone had put a necktie on his luggage when it came around on the carousel at JFK, but apparently, U.S. Customs Agents did – and they arrested Wilson for having 2,000 grams of cocaine in two bags were found inside. Wilson said there was no necktie on his suitcase when he checked in with Caribbean Airlines at Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan Airport.
“You go out for a vacation you don’t expect anybody to go and tamper with your bag,” he told The Post.
Wilson “had never touched, handled, sold or even seen drugs in his life,” and didn’t put them in his own suitcase, court papers claim. About 10 weeks later, prosecutors dropped the charges after determining Wilson’s bag had been tampered with “while in the sole custody of Caribbean Airlines,” he said in the legal filing.
Wilson is suing because he said it cost his family money to bail him out of jail, his reputation in the Guyanese community in Queens had been ruined, and he lost his job.
“What Mr. Wilson went through was a terrible ordeal and he should be compensated for the airline’s negligence,” said his lawyer, Amy Robinson.