Illinois Man Gets 32 Years for Heroin Trafficking in Springfield

Deauntee Q. Mosby, 24, of Oak Lawn, Ill., is headed to federal prison for 32 years without parole after being sentenced Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, for his role in a major heroin trafficking ring that flooded Springfield, Mo., with deadly drugs. Mosby, a key supplier, admitted to importing heroin from Chicago and distributing it across Greene County in a conspiracy that lasted nearly two years.

Mosby pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin between May 29, 2013, and Feb. 12, 2015. He admitted to orchestrating shipments of the drug hidden in vehicles driven from Illinois to Missouri. On Sept. 13, 2013, he sold seven grams of heroin to a confidential law enforcement informant for $1,100—cash that helped build the case that would later take him down.

Law enforcement intercepted Mosby twice. On Aug. 28, 2013, he was a passenger in a vehicle stopped in Nixa, Mo. Officers found a syringe laced with heroin between the front seats, a digital scale with residue, $2,373 in the driver’s wallet, and a firearm in the trunk. Then on Jan. 12, 2015, in Pulaski County, officers discovered 59.36 grams of heroin stashed behind a panel beneath the center console of a car Mosby was driving.

Joshua C. Leamon, 26, of Springfield, was sentenced in the same case to five years and 10 months without parole. Leamon admitted to buying heroin from Mosby and reselling it at $30 per tenth of a gram—moving roughly a quarter ounce weekly. He also admitted to traveling with others to Chicago, St. Louis, and Fort Leonard Wood to purchase bulk quantities of the drug.

Leamon’s criminal activity culminated on Feb. 12, 2015, when he sold a Kel-Tec 9mm semi-automatic pistol along with .93 gram of heroin in an undercover sting conducted by Springfield Police and a confidential informant. That buy marked the end of the conspiracy and triggered the final wave of arrests.

Mosby and Leamon are the last of seven defendants to be sentenced in the case. The prosecution was led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nhan D. Nguyen and Ami Harshad Miller. The investigation involved the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the Springfield Police Department—a multi-agency push to dismantle a pipeline that turned streets into a drug warzone.

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