A voodoo-practicing, drug-smuggling baggage handler will rot in prison, after a Brooklyn federal judge today slammed him with three life sentences – and then some — for endangering the lives of countless airline passengers.
Former American Airlines baggage handler Victor Bourne, 37, was nailed with the three life terms plus an additional 35 years for masterminding an international drug-trafficking ring that smuggled cocaine and other illicit drugs in cargo holds and internal walls of AA jets going in and out of JFK.
US District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said Bourne’s greed jeopardized the safety of New York air passengers, because drugs were stored in areas that could have impacted flight equipment.
In one case, Bourne’s ring disassembled a jet’s wing to hide narcotics inside.
“The need to protect the public from these kinds of dangers requires a long sentence,” said Garaufis, adding that Bourne acts were “placing hundreds of passengers lives at risk.”
Garaufis also ripped Bourne for testifying untruthfully to jurors.
“The defend repeated and brazenly lied,” he said.
Bourne’s mom, Maria Alleyne, was in the courthouse for today’s sentencing. But she refused to enter the courtroom and chose instead to stand outside in a vestibule.
Before the trial began, Alleyne, 52, went to Africa and hired a witch doctor to put a curse on the prosecutors, according to court documents.
The judge said Bourne and his ring preyed upon society’s weakest members — drug addicts.
“You personally exacerbated one of this nation’s greatest blights,” Garaufis said.
“Your wide-ranging and long standing narcotics scheme has polluted this [judicial] district, this state, and this country.”
Bourne insists the evidence against him is weak and his lawyers vowed to appeal.
Additional reporting by David K. Li