Temple Hills, Maryland Drug Trafficker Sentenced to 240 Months in Jail

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Lonnell George Glover, 48, of Temple Hills, Maryland, was sentenced on June 24, 2010, to 240 months' imprisonment by Judge Ellen Huvelle, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, in connection with his conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute over five kilograms of cocaine, on February 2, 2010, announced United States Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Miami Security Director Mark Hatfield, Jr., and Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office. Glover will also have to serve 10 years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term.

The investigation of Glover arose from a long-term FBI operation between 2005 and 2007 targeting the narcotics trade in the Washington, D.C. area. The investigation revealed that Glover was a major regional supplier of heroin, PCP, and cocaine. The investigation, which included several court-authorized wiretaps, showed that from February to June of 2007, Lonnell Glover planned with Jonathan Wright and others to purchase between 10 and 20 kilograms of cocaine from a supplier in the Bahamas, which they would then sell in the District of Columbia and elsewhere. If the cocaine was of good quality, Glover planned to obtain and sell 1,000 kilograms of cocaine a month throughout the United States.

On June 2, 2007, Glover and Wright secreted $175,000 inside of a microwave oven, which they handed over to a courier to transport on an airline flight to the Bahamas. However, at the Miami airport the microwave oven was x-rayed and the money was detected and seized. Subsequent wiretapped conversations between defendants Glover and Wright made clear that they were responsible for the $175,000 hidden in the microwave oven. Because the money was seized in Miami, the defendants never received the cocaine from the Bahamas.

Glover is also scheduled to be sentenced on July 29, 2010, before the Honorable Thomas F. Hogan, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, for his November 3, 2008 conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute over a kilogram of PCP.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen, Security Director Mark Hatfield, Jr., and Assistant Director Shawn Henry commended the work of FBI special agents who investigated the case, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Office, Kevin Stanfill, TSA officers, and United States Attorney’s Office Supervisory Paralegal Specialist James Mazzitelli, along with Assistant United States Attorneys John Han and Anthony Scarpelli who prosecuted the case. This investigation was supported by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.