Gupta’s Guilty Plea Halts Courtroom Airing Of Evidence And Witnesses

NEW YORK, NY – Nikhil Gupta’s dramatic admission in a federal court here that he participated in a murder-for-hire plot brought an abrupt end to the trial against him, without testimony from witnesses or the trove of what prosecutors assert was evidence against him being aired in court.

Gupta, who was accused of plotting against a Khalistani leader, pleaded guilty on February 13 to three charges against him: murder-for-hire, and conspiracies to commit that crime as well as launder money.

This marked a reversal from the stand he took in court in 2024, when he had pleaded not guilty.

Without a trial at which prosecutors would present evidence and call witnesses, and defense lawyers would attempt to challenge it and present their own case, the proceedings will now go straight to sentencing.

The target of the plot is believed to be Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, although the prosecution has only said that it was “a US citizen of Indian origin” who “is a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab” and the creation of a “Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan”.

Gupta made the admission of guilt before Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in a fast-moving development, rather than before Judge Victor Marrero, who is presiding over the case.

Magistrate judges do not preside over trials and handle other matters relating to cases. Therefore, the final disposal of the case, including sentencing, will go back to Marrero.

The proceedings were held in a small side courtroom and not in the main courtroom where Marrero had earlier presided over the case.

Gupta is being held in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, where Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro is also being held.

He was brought from there to the federal court near Wall Street in Manhattan.

He was dressed in a tan jail uniform and was unshackled by a US Marshal before being ushered into the courtroom through a side door.

Khalistanis filled the spectator section of the courtroom.

Netburn asked Gupta, “How do you plead to the three counts [or charges]?”

He replied, “Guilty”.

The magistrate judge then asked him, “Tell me what you did?”

Explaining his guilty plea, Gupta said, “In the Spring in 2023, I agreed with another person to murder a person in the US. I delivered $15,000 in cash by phone to a person in the US”.

Before accepting the guilty plea, Netburn turned to the prosecutors and asked what evidence they had.

One of the assistant federal prosecutors said, “Testimony from a confidential source, an undercover officer who operated as the would-be hitman” and “WhatsApp and text messages, bank records, video of the cash payment made to the undercover agent”.

Marrero is expected to sentence Gupta on May 29. He could face maximum penalties of ten years in prison for each of the two murder-for-hire charges and 20 years for the money laundering charge, according to prosecutors.

In most cases where the accused plead guilty, they receive lower sentences.

In Gupta’s case, there was no agreement on a deal for lesser punishment. Prosecutors submitted a letter to the court outlining the maximum penalties prescribed under the law, and Gupta was made aware of them.

The prosecutors said in October that they had offered Gupta a plea deal, which lapsed when he did not follow through.

Prosecutors have named Vikash Yadav as a co-defendant of Gupta. Yadav is in India, out of the reach of US authorities, who have filed charges against him.

The Indian government has denied any involvement in the case and charged Yadav in 2023, in an unrelated matter, with extortion and abduction of a businessperson in India. That case is pending, and in August, a Delhi court issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest.

US officials described Gupta as an “international narcotics and weapons trafficker” who allegedly entered the plot to gain leniency from Indian law enforcement.

US prosecutors allege that Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the murder-for-hire plot, and that Gupta approached a person he believed was a criminal to find a hitman.

That person was, in fact, a confidential source working with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The informant introduced Gupta to an undercover DEA officer, telling him that the officer was a hitman for hire.

Prosecutors said Gupta agreed in June 2023 to pay the undercover officer $100,000 to carry out the murder.

Yadav and Gupta, prosecutors said, arranged for an associate to give the officer $15,000 as an advance.

The transaction, as well as other interactions among those involved in the plot, were recorded, prosecutors said, and visuals were included in the chargesheet.

Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US in June 2024. (IANS)