West Virginian Sentenced for Trafficking 400KG Marijuana, Most Via Postal Carriers

On January 3, 2017, 27-year-old Parker Wyatt Mays received a prison sentence of one year and one day for his admitted participation in an intranational drug trafficking ring. The 27-year-old from Huntington, West Virginia, pleaded guilty to marijuana distribution in late August 2016. The Drug Enforcement Administration pursued Mays and a large list of co-conspirators in an ongoing, long-term investigation.

In May 2016, Joseph F. Adams, the Assistant United States Attorney on the case, signed a 22-count indictment against 12 defendants for trafficking drugs from West Virginia to California. Many of the remaining suspects, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, are still under investigation by various law enforcement agencies.

As of August 2016, Mays still faced pending charges from a superseding indictment. The new, 24-count indictment added charges upon discovery of additional evidence against the 27-year-old. Each co-defendant, at this point in the courtroom procedures, became the sole defendant in his or her case. Each defendant received a new list of criminal indictments, varying in depth and scope. Parker Wyatt Mays found himself before a judge in the Northern District of Florida where the magistrate judge terminated the case. Federal Marshals carried him from Tallahassee back to West Virginia.

According to the Department of Justice’s plea agreement with Mays, the pending charges consisted of three out of the 24 counts in the subsequent indictment. The first charge (Count One) accused Mays of conspiracy to distribute 1KG or more of heroin, 28-grams of cocaine, an un-quantified weight of marijuana, and an unquantified number of alprazolam (Xanax) pills. The second pending charge (Count Six) accused the man of “aiding and abetting of the maintaining of a residence” where someone distributed heroin. And the third and final pending charge (Count Twenty-Two) followed the above charge of aiding and abetting—this time about the possession and distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

Per the deal both parties came to in the plea agreement, Mays admitted that between 2014 and 2016, he distributed, purchased, and trafficked 400 kilograms of marijuana. He said that he, along with two key co-defendants, Corey Bruce Toney and Roy Bills, conspired to distribute marijuana in the Huntington area. Furthermore, Mays explained that he routinely purchased large quantities of marijuana for distribution. The marijuana source in California both mailed the packages to Huntington or ensured the delivery via an automobile. The proceeds of each marijuana purchase and subsequent resale went straight back to California for another package, he admitted.

Toney pleaded guilty, too, albeit for heroin distribution. Like Mays, Toney admitted to working with the group to distribute and transport large amounts of drugs. Court documents noted that Toney carried crack, marijuana, heroin, and alprazolam through several states. The drugs came from California and Michigan to Huntington. Bill pleaded guilty, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia, to conspiracy to distribute marijuana—in the month of November 2017.