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Ricky Hubbard, 46, was convicted by jurors in U.S. District Court in March. He'll have to serve out the entire 19-year term because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
Hubbard was talking on a cellphone when Union Township police stopped him in a 2012 Kia Sedona with tinted windows in the eastbound lanes of Route 22 near Ball Avenue on Nov. 6, 2019, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said.
They immediately smelled pot while noticing a bunch of air fresheners and tampering of the vehicle's console, documents on file in U.S. District Court in Newark show.
From the front passenger seat, the officers recovered a blue Igloo water jug containing a plastic Ziploc bag filled with marijuana, as well as loose pieces of pot and 21 zip-locking bags commonly used to package drugs, police said at the time.
In an empty space behind the center console, they said, they found a plastic bag containing 241 wax paper folds of heron and 116 doses of crack cocaine.
Because of the traffic, the officers had the Kia towed to police headquarters before searching anymore.
There they found a 9mm Taurus handgun with seven rounds of ammo -- including a bullet in the chamber -- along with, 10 heroin folds, two plastic jugs of crack and a pot grinder, documents in U.S. District Court in Newark show.
Hubbard, who was arrested, took his chances with a jury rather than accept a plea deal.
He lost when the jurors convicted him on Thursday, Oct 12, of drug trafficking, firearm possession, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking following a four-day trial.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Kevin McNulty sentenced Hubbard on Thursday, Oct. 12, to five years of supervised release.
Sellinger, meanwhile, credited special agents of the FBI, the Union Township Police Department, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office and the Union County Sheriff’s Office with the investigation leading to the sentence secured by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Olta Bejleri and Emma Spiro of his Criminal Division in Newark.
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