Washington, D.C. – A 47-year-old Waldorf, Maryland man, Antoine Jones, was sentenced today before the Honorable Ellen Segal Huvelle in U.S. District Court to life imprisonment without the possibility of release for conspiring with others to ship multiple kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to the Washington metropolitan area for redistribution to others between 2003 and 2005, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced.

Jones and co-defendant Lawrence Maynard, 46, of Hyattsville, MD, were found guilty in January 2008, of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Jones’s sentence was mandatory based on his three prior felony drug convictions stemming back to the early 1990s. In imposing the sentence, Judge Huvelle noted that it was harsh, but based on the choices the defendant made over a long period of time, was also fair. His co-defendant, Lawrence Maynard, was sentenced last week to 151 months in prison for the same conviction.

The evidence at trial – resulting from a long-term MPD/FBI Safe Streets Task Force investigation – established that Jones, with the assistance of Maynard, operated a cocaine trafficking conspiracy from between at least some time in 2003 through October 2005, involving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine which were shipped to the greater District of Columbia metropolitan area from Mexico, and which were stored at various stash locations in the area for as much as a month at a time. The evidence further demonstrated that Jones and Maynard would redistribute as many as three kilograms at a time to various local customers, at prices ranging from $20,000 to $23,000 per kilogram.

In the course of the investigation, law enforcement used numerous investigative measures, including a Title III wire interception on Jones’s cellular telephone, and sophisticated GPS technology on Jones’s Jeep. The investigation culminated in the execution of a number of search warrants in the District of Columbia and nearby suburban Maryland , on October 24, 2005. Among the evidence seized that day were 97 kilograms of cocaine – the largest single cocaine seizure in area history – over half a kilogram of crack cocaine, and over $850,000, from a stash house in the 9500 block of Potomac Drive, in Ft. Washington, Maryland; in excess of $69,000, in cash from Jones’s Jeep; and wholesale quantities of cocaine, large quantities of cash, drug packaging materials, and firearms at the residences of at least four other individuals. The evidence further demonstrated that in April 2005, Maynard was stopped in North Carolina driving Jones’s minivan. Recovered from a sophisticated hidden compartment in that minivan was in excess of $67,000, bundled up in shopping bags.

Finally, the trial evidence demonstrated that in the Spring of 2004, a separate investigation into Mexican drug trafficking by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency led to two separate residences in Maryland rented by Jones and Maynard, and visited by suspected cartel members, along with a storage facility. While no narcotics were recovered from those residences, they were similar in many other respects to the stash house in the Safe Streets investigation.

In addition to the convictions of Jones and Maynard, at least eight additional defendants have pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges in connection with this investigation, which has been funded by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement (“OCDETF”) and Baltimore Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) programs.