ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Laurel man was sentenced today to over five years in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin.
According to court documents, Jeffrey Okyere, 32, was living in a luxury apartment building in National Harbor, Maryland, while he was a member of a drug conspiracy that was transporting heroin from Texas to the Washington, D.C. area for distribution. Okyere and another member of the conspiracy cut heroin inside his apartment in National Harbor, and Okyere supplied the conspiracy with heroin after members of the conspiracy stopped transporting heroin to the area from Texas.
Okyere has several prior felony convictions and was deported to Ghana in 2010. He was caught attempting to reenter the country illegally in 2011, but after serving prison time for that offense, he was not deported again. He was sentenced today to 63 months in prison, and three years of supervised release.
Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Andrew W. Vale, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Karl C. Colder, Special Agent in Charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Washington Field Division, and Colonel Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Fairfax County Chief of Police, made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady. Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Tyler McGaughey and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney David A. Peters prosecuted the case.
The case was investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Operation Puppet Master. The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.
A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information is located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 1:17-cr-159.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
