Federal authorities Wednesday said the last defendant in a 6-year-long drug trafficking and public corruption case has been sentenced to prison.
Mark Tomlinson, 40, of Stone Mountain, received 16 years for drug trafficking, the lengthiest term among 16 individuals sentenced in connection with the case.
The investigation, conducted by agencies including Immigration Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the IRS, FBI and DeKalb County police, led to the convictions of a U.S. Customs agent and a DeKalb police officer.
“This case began with a Customs and Border Protection officer taking payoffs to smuggle guns and purported drug money through Atlanta’s airport, and it ended with the dismantling of a large-scale drug trafficking organization and the seizure of hundreds of thousands of ecstasy pills,” acting U.S. attorney John Horn said.
Beginning in February 2010, authorities said, they began to investigate a drug trafficking organization led by Jerome Bushay, Otis Henry and Tomlinson.
Authorities said Henry was a major distributor of BZP, a drug similar to ecstasy, and marijuana. In October 2010, officers searched Henry's DeKalb home and seized 700,000 tablets of BZP – which was one of the largest domestic seizures of the drug in U.S. history. The street value of the pills was estimated at $2.8 million.
Henry fled and remained on the run for over a year but in January 2012 was arrested in Tampa, Fla.
Bushay distributed more than 185,000 pills and used former U.S. Customs agent Devon Samuels to transport his drug money through the airport, authorities said. In one instance, in November 2010, Bushay had Samuels smuggle $40,000 in drug money into the airport. Samuels used his badge to bypass airport security, which resulted in the bag not being screened. Afterwards, Samuels gave the bag to Bushay’s associate, who was headed to Texas.
Tomlinson distributed thousands of pills, authorities said, and in October 2014 a federal jury convicted him of conspiring to traffic pills and marijuana.
Samuels, 49, of Stockbridge, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder drug money, attempting to bring guns onto an airplane, and conspiring to commit marriage fraud. The charges against Samuels centered on three undercover sting operations during which he smuggled drug money and guns through the airport.
Authorities said Samuels also used his knowledge of immigration policies to commit marriage fraud. Samuels and his wife, Keisha Jones, a former Delta Airlines employee, taught Carlton Ferguson and Dahlia McLaren how to deceive U.S. immigration authorities into believing that Ferguson and McLaren’s sham marriage was genuine and legitimate, authorities said. Samuels and Jones were paid to falsely complete the immigration paperwork necessary for McLaren to obtain U.S. citizenship through her sham marriage to Ferguson.
Samuels, Jones, Ferguson, and McLaren all pleaded guilty to marriage fraud conspiracy charges. After her plea, McLaren was stripped of her U.S. citizenship.
Authorities said investigators also learned during the operation that former DeKalb police officer Donald Bristol, 45, helped drug traffickers hide a stolen vehicle and that he unlawfully accessed his police computer and lied to federal agents. In October 2011, Bristol was sentenced to one year.
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