Six drug dealers responsible for flooding the streets of one southeast D.C. neighborhood with crack and cocaine conducted many of their large-scale transactions in shopping centers in Oxon Hill near at least one of their homes, according to court documents filed in their cases.
The six men pleaded guilty to federal narcotics and money laundering charges this month and face prison sentences of up to 17 years.
Court documents describe in detail the operation, which included selling cocaine in large quantities in area parking lots, cooking it into crack, and hustling it on corners in Congress Heights where street-level dealers kept watch for undercover police.
According to court documents, Robert Savoy, 40, of Fort Washington, often met up with others at the Oxon Hill Shopping Center on Livingston Road to dole out large quantities of cocaine that he had purchased in kilogram quantities from Jerome Johnson, 41, of Capitol Heights.
The buyers, like 38-year-old Terrance Hudson of Oxon Hill and James Brown, 42, of the District, would in turn take bags of cocaine – often in quantities of 31 grams – and cook it down into crack cocaine to increase the amount that could be sold, court documents state. At times, Savoy would even give Hudson “instruction on how to improve his crack cooking technique.”
Savoy even paid $1,000 to hire a lawyer for Hudson, who was arrested after Savoy sold him five 31-gram bags of cocaine, court documents state.
Investigators tracked the sales though phone wire taps, noting that the drugs Hudson bought were at times sold to two men who distributed the drugs in the 4200 and 4300 blocks of 4th Street Southeast in the District.
One of the men, Eric Scurry, 40, of Oxon Hill, sold crack to more than 50 customers around the District and Maryland, court documents state. The other man, Nathan Robinson, 39, of the District, at times warned Scurry of police presence in the Congress Heights neighborhood so that he would not get caught selling the drugs.
Most of the men were arrested in late 2010, with Brown later arrested in September 2011. Through their plea agreements, the men all admitted to conspiring to distribute large quantities over the course of several years, with Hudson admitting he sold up to 15 kilograms of cocaine during that time.
As investigators arrested the six suspects, seized multiple handguns, more than a kilogram of powder cocaine, large quantities of crack cocaine, and more than $40,000.
The men now faces prison terms ranging from 17 years for to seven years for Brown. Their sentencing hearings are scheduled for November or December.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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