Emanuel Alexander Cheeseboro, a/k/a “Mandoo,” is going away for a long time — 622 months, to be exact — after a federal judge in Columbia, South Carolina, slammed him with a 51.8-year prison sentence for flooding neighborhoods with crack cocaine and packing heat while doing it. The 36-year-old Columbia man was convicted on six counts of possession with intent to distribute crack, two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, two counts of using a gun in furtherance of drug trafficking, and one count of marijuana possession. U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson, Jr. handed down the sentence, which will be followed by six years of supervised release.
The hammer came down thanks to a years-long investigation sparked by relentless citizen complaints about open-air drug dealing in the Martin Luther King Park area. Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) teamed up with Columbia Police Department (CPD) officers to infiltrate the operation, making multiple undercover buys from Cheeseboro in the spring of 2014. Each transaction was captured on video — clear, damning footage of Cheeseboro handing off crack to an undercover cop at various houses in the neighborhood. During one exchange, he didn’t just sell dope — he bragged about carrying a 9mm Taurus pistol equipped with a laser, claiming he used it during nighttime drug runs.
Armed with that evidence, law enforcement executed a search warrant at one of the houses tied to Cheeseboro. Inside, they found crack cocaine, marijuana, and digital scales — the tools of a committed dealer. Later, investigators tracked down a firearm linked directly to Cheeseboro, a previously convicted felon barred from possessing any weapon. That connection alone triggered federal charges carrying stiff mandatory minimums.
But it was the June 8, 2016 bust at a notorious Columbia stash house known as “the Hole” that sealed Cheeseboro’s fate. CPD officers detained him and a female companion inside a vehicle on the property. A search turned up a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber pistol tucked under the driver’s seat, crack cocaine on the woman, and marijuana in the trunk. She told investigators Cheeseboro shoved the gun under the seat and ordered her to hide the crack on her body as cops approached — a desperate move caught on the wrong side of justice.
Prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William K. Witherspoon and Alyssa Richardson, the case was handled under Project CeaseFire, South Carolina’s aggressive enforcement arm of the federal Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative. The program, reinvigorated in 2017 under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, targets violent offenders who use firearms in drug and gang-related crimes. By pooling federal, state, and local resources, Project CeaseFire aims to dismantle criminal networks before they claim more lives.
Cheeseboro now faces the long haul behind bars — 622 months, a fine of $5,000, and an $1,100 special assessment. His nickname ‘Mandoo’ may still echo in the streets of MLK Park, but his reign of dealing and armed intimidation is over. For residents tired of gunshots and open-air markets, today’s sentence is more than justice — it’s relief.
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Key Facts
- State: South Carolina
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Weapons|Organized Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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