Sixteenth Defendant Sentenced for Prison Drug Conspiracy

Gulfport, Miss. – A Long Beach, Mississippi man was sentenced to 99 months in federal prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

Johnson Tran, 47, was sentenced on October 17, 2024, in U.S. District Court in Gulfport.

According to court documents and information presented to the Court, in 2018, agents with the DEA received information from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that drug laced letters and greeting cards were being sent to inmates in the Bureau of Prisons from the Southern District of Mississippi.  The drug laced letters and cards were intercepted at prisons in Illinois, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

DEA and BOP officials were able to determine that inmates were ordering the drug laced letters and cards from Johnson Tran via prison email accounts and jail calls.   The inmates would typically order the drugs using coded language. The letters or greeting cards were laced with FUB-AMB and 5F-MDMB-PICA, which are Schedule I controlled substances and synthetic cannabinoids.  Many of them were sent through the postal service in Gulfport, Mississippi, and Tran’s base of operation was Harrison County, Mississippi.

Agents were also able to determine through the review of financial records that Tran would ultimately receive payment for the drugs that he sent into prison via U.S. Department of Treasury checks drawn from the inmate’s prison accounts and/or peer-to-peer money transfers from associates or family members of the inmates.  When Tran’s associates would receive funds on Tran’s behalf, Tran would give them a portion of the funds they received as payment for their services.

In addition to Johnson Tran, fifteen other defendants have been sentenced in the case:  

Chaze Lowery and William Hernandez previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Lowery was sentenced to 48 months in prison and Hernandez was sentenced to 87 months in prison.

Jermaine Jones pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and was sentenced to 62 months imprisonment.

Jorge Pena, Trae Short, Bobby Huneycutt, Clarence Plato, Ryan Douglas, Salomon Ayala, Stanley Spriggs, Corderius Trammell, Jonathan Estrada, Marcus Thames, and Allen Butler all pled guilty to conspiring to commit an offense against the United States by conspiring to introduce contraband to a federal correctional facility. Their sentences ranged from time served to 52 months in prison.

Ryan Schmittaur pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and was sentenced to 4 years of probation and a $3,000.00 fine.

A seventeenth defendant, Ashley Magee, pled guilty to engaging in an unlicensed money transmission business by accepting and transferring money on behalf of Johnson Tran and the inmates. She will be sentenced on January 7, 2025, and faces a maximum of 5 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Todd Gee of the Southern District of Mississippi and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Anessa Daniels-McCaw of the Drug Enforcement Administration made the announcement.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Buckner.

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons.

This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor- led, intelligence driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.