TAMPA – Jurors in the federal drug trial of Buju Banton went home for the weekend after deliberating for a second day without reaching a
verdict.

The 37-year-old reggae singer could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Jurors deliberated for about seven hours today following about three hours of deliberations Thursday. The panel will return to court Monday.

Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, had been held without bail since his arrest in December following a sting at a Sarasota warehouse.

The defense maintains Banton was set up by a government informant who cajoled and charmed him into talking “garbage” about drug trafficking.

But prosecutors are using tapes of Banton’s conversations and a video of him sampling cocaine to argue that the singer was a drug trafficker who hoped to expand his operations with the informant’s help.