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DALLAS AUSTIN LEAVES UAE JAIL AFTER PARDON: Producer hurried up and got on a plane back to the U.S.
*Within the span of one week, producer Dallas Austin – convicted on drug charges in Dubai, went from looking at a possible death sentence, to getting a four-year bid, to being pardoned to being forced onto a plane back to the United States.
"He is on the plane and safely out of the country," Austin's Atlanta lawyer, Joel A. Katz, said in an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The 33-year-old Grammy winner, who has crafted songs for Michael Jackson, TLC and Usher, pleaded guilty Sunday to possessing 1.26 grams of cocaine and five-and-a-half capsules containing banned substances including cocaine. He was sentenced to four years in prison, only to be pardoned hours later by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is also vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of which Dubai is part.
Mohammad Abdullah al-Redha, one of the producer’s lawyers, told reporters that Austin "admitted that he had (the drugs) in his pocket and said he brought them in by mistake." Austin said he had "forgotten" to get rid of them before coming into the country. He was reportedly on his way to a three-day birthday bash thrown by Naomi Campbell.
One legal expert tells AFP that the four-year jail sentence handed down to Austin is the normal punishment under Emirati law for possession of drugs for personal use. A conviction for drug trafficking carries the death penalty.
