At long last! The battle is ended and Hon Eric Amoateng, the beloved Ex MP for Nkoranza North Constituency has replaced his "NOT GUILTY" plea with a "GUILTY" plea to charges of conspiracy to import heroine into America.
Sentencing has been scheduled for 3pm on June 6, 2007.
The presiding Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann in accepting Amoateng's plea observed that "pursuant to Federal Rule LL of the criminal procedure, a finding has been made that the plea was made knowingly and voluntarily and the plea was not coerced".
The judge further noted that the "plea of GUILTY be accepted and the plea agreement marked as court exhibit # 1 Hon Amoateng and his counsel on March 19, 2007 sigend document before the court in which defendant Amoateng told the court that after "fully discussing the matter fully with my counsel" he has decided to enter plea of GUILTY.
Exactly five months ago, Hon Amoateng in a statement issued through his Attorney Dennis Adjei Brenya of New Hampstead, New York saying that:
"I affirm before my nation that the allegations against me is false. I have not done anything wrong, I emphatically and categorically deny the charges leveled against me, I pray to God that in due time and soon all the facts will come out and I would be totally exonerated".
In the said statement, Hon Amoateng accused the media in that statement of "unfairly trying and convicting me without the benefit of the facts underlying the case. Our own constitutional demand that I should be presumed innocent".
Mr Amoateng is standing on eight counts of importation, conspiracry to import, distributing and conspiracy to distribute, distributing and possession with intension to distribute heroine in America.
Amoateng and one Nii Adjei were arrested on November 12, 2005 for concealing heroine in pottery and hiding it in a storage facility in Stan Island.