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Jerome Powell, 43, must serve just about all of the plea-bargained 51-month sentence because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
He and four accused members worked in the area of Columbia Park, moving the drugs from an undisclosed stash house to a home on Bartholdi Avenue that servied buyers, according to a DEA complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Authorities built a case by recording street deals and picking off buyers after they left the area. Powell had 400 vials of cocaine in his pocket when he eventually was arrested in early 2020, they said..
Rather than risk the potential consequences of a guilty verdict at a trial, Powell took a deal from federal prosecutors, pleading guilty to cocaine possession and conspiracy.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Susan D. Wigenton sentenced Powell to three years of supervised release during a teleconferenced proceeding in Newark on Tuesday, Jan. 10.
U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger credited special agents and task force officers of the DEA, along with Jersey City police, with the investigation leading to the plea and sentence, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Agnew of his Trenton office.
The takedown stems from what's known as the Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI), which Sellinger called a “collaborative, multi-agency program designed to combine the resources of New Jersey’s federal, state, and local law enforcement to identify, target, and prosecute violent offenders and criminal organizations."
Participating along with is office, the DEA, FBI and ATF are U.S. Marshals, city police, the Hudson County prosecutor's and sheriff's offices, the state parole board and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center/Real Time Crime Center.
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