In trial, reggae star says he lied about drug deals - St. Petersburg Times: "TAMPA — He was a reggae icon who toured extensively throughout Europe and was considered the 'voice of Jamaica.'
The other man was noticeably overweight and ran a frozen seafood business.
Yet reggae star Buju Banton felt the need to impress Alexander Johnson with talk of elaborate, million-dollar drug deals stretching the continents.
In the end it was all a lie, Banton said, a rivalry for superiority.
'I was trying to impress this guy. I wasn't going to let him outtalk me,' the musician told jurors during testimony in the third day of his federal drug trafficking trial Wednesday. 'That's what got me into this hot seat.'
Johnson was a government informer who taped conversations with Banton discussing a variety of drug deals over five months, including shipping cocaine from Panama to Europe in crates with seafood. The informer was paid $50,000 in this case, according to testimony."

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