A man from Dallas, Texas has been charged with federal drug trafficking violations in the Eastern District of Texas.
Transnational Crimes
This news was announced by U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston on the 23rd of January, 2023. The man held for this crime goes by the name Eric Roberts and is 51 years old.
Eric was charged with numerous violations which also included the continuation of criminal enterprise, conspiring to have and distribute marijuana illegally, committing money laundering and fraudulent practices as well as possessing a firearm while also going forth and carrying out a drug trafficking crime per se.
He was found guilty by a jury and his trial lasted for 10 whole days, in front of U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant. The jury also charged him with a massive sum of property that he had seized before which included 8 vehicles, more than 30 firearms, and exactly $436,295 in US money.
There wasn’t just him but also 4 other defendants who was arrested for this crime. Their names are Ronald Lewis McGuire, Lowell Eugene Sargent, Philip S. Lala, and Christopher Shaun Ragle.
These people were found guilty by the same jury. They were convicted of conspiracy for they were possessing marijuana with the intention of distributing it for wrongful purposes and committed money laundering among other crimes so to speak.
Leveling Up Of Punishments
The jury found that all these 5 defendants were each responsible for around 1000 kgs or more of a substance that had quite an understandable amount of marijuana in them.
All the documents and proof presented in the court showed very apparently that Roberts was the team leader of a pretty massive scale national drug trafficking organization that has been on the move for quite some time now. McGuire, Sargent, Ragle, and Lala were pretending to be drivers all along and making this operation work with such cunningness, that no one at all had an inch of doubt regarding this.
Roberts was accused and charged by a federal grand July back in April of 2021. He, as of now, faces up to life in federal prison at sentencing. The sentencing that’s given by Congress is further processed and defined by the court of law. All of it is based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other factors. A hearing will happen and sentencing will follow in this case right after the presentence investigation takes place by the U.S. Probation Office.
This prosecution is an active part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces investigation. OCFETF figures out and pulls apart the most certified drug traffickers, fraudsters, gangs, money launderers, and international criminal organizations that continue to pose a threat to the U.S.A.
This organization uses an AI-driven multi-agency approach that commercializes the strength of federal, local, and state law enforcement agencies working against criminals all over the place. This case was thoroughly and actively investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Mesquite Police Department. It is also prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brent L. Andrus and Ernest Gonzalez as of now.
