Drug Conspiracy Leader Sentenced To More Than 25 Years In Prison

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Alex Lenard McCoy, 32, of Gastonia, N.C. was sentenced today to 310 months in prison on a federal drug conspiracy charge and a supervised release violation, announced Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. In addition to the prison term imposed, Chief U.S. District Judge Frank D. Whitney also ordered McCoy to serve five years under court supervision after he is released from prison.

John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division; Nick Annan, Special Agent in Charge of ICE/Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Georgia and the Carolinas; and Chief Robert C. Helton of the Gastonia Police Department join U.S. Attorney Rose in making today’s announcement.

According to filed court documents and today’s sentencing hearings, from 2011 to June 2015, McCoy and co-defendants Mickey Burris, Rodney Moore, and Eric Briggs operated as a drug conspiracy, selling crack cocaine in Gaston County and elsewhere. Court records indicate that McCoy was the leader of the drug conspiracy and engaged in drug trafficking activity while he was on federal supervision for a previous drug conviction. Court records also show that McCoy maintained a residence for purposes of drug trafficking and was responsible for the trafficking of more than a kilogram of crack cocaine. At the time of his arrest, law enforcement seized from McCoy $7,157 in drug proceeds. McCoy pleaded guilty in June 2016 to one count of drug trafficking conspiracy.

McCoy’s co-defendants were previously sentenced as follows: Mickey Burris was sentenced to 120 months in prison and five years of supervised release; Rodney Moore was sentenced to 51 months in prison and four years of supervised release; and Eric Briggs was sentenced to six months in prison and two years of supervised release.

McCoy will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentencings are served without the possibility of parole.

The prosecutions are the result of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF is a joint federal, state and local cooperative approach to combat drug trafficking and is the nation’s primary tool for disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organizations, targeting national and regional drug trafficking organizations and coordinating the necessary law enforcement entities and resources to disrupt or dismantle the targeted criminal organization and seize their assets.

The investigation was led by FBI, HSI, and Gastonia PD. Assistant United States Attorney Steven R. Kaufman of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.