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Damion “Checks” Helmes, 42, of Cliffwood was the last of 20 defendants convicted of peddling the drug throughout Monmouth County and into Ocean County.
Jurors in U.S. District Court in Trenton found Helmes guilty of various drug-dealing charges while acquitting him of two gun offenses following a two-week trial.
Helmes had already done time following a drug and gun bust in Keansburg in 2004, records show.
Initially busted by the locals, Helmes was charged federally by the FBI’s Jersey Shore Gang and Criminal Organization Task Force in a multi-agency takedown of the ring.
Working out of a home on Milton Avenue in Neptune, he and his colleagues sold the coke and crack in Cliffwood, Keansburg, Matawan, Keyport, Red Bank, Long Branch, Neptune, Asbury Park and Brick Township, federal prosecutors said.
Helmes got the cocaine from Derrick "D-flex" Hayes of Neptune and Dequan "Just" Copeland of Red Bank, then either sold it as powder or cooked it into crack, authorities said.
What the members didn't know was that investigators were watching.
Both Hayes and Copeland took deals from the government rather than face the possible consequences of a trial.
Helmes took a different route.
Federal sentencing guidelines could send him to prison for many years.
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger credited several agencies with the takedown, pleas and sentencings:
- agents from the FBI's Newark Division and Red Bank Resident Agency;
- members of the Jersey Shore Gang and Criminal Organization Task Force (including representatives from the Bradley Beach, Brick, Howell, Toms River, Union Beach and Marlboro police departments and the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office);
- Local police in Red Bank, Middletown, Keansburg, Highlands, Holmdel and Long Branch.
Handing the case for the government are Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ian D. Brater and Alexander E. Ramey of the Sellinger's Criminal Division in Trenton.
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