St. Petersburg Man Sentenced to More Than 17 Years
Distributed over 18 Kilograms of Cocaine in Addition to Heroin and Fentanyl
TAMPA, Fla. –Ahmad Rashad Weston, aka “Blood,” 42, of St. Petersburg, was sentenced to 17 years and 6 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute 100 grams or more of a drug mixture containing heroin and fentanyl, as well as 500 grams or more of cocaine.
Weston pleaded guilty on May 19, 2020.
According to court documents and evidence presented at his sentencing hearing, Weston served as the hub of a drug trafficking conspiracy that operated in the greater Tampa Bay area between at least August 2018 and November 2019. Law enforcement began the investigation by conducting 17 undercover hand-to-hand heroin purchases from co-defendant Quincy Turner. Further investigation determined that Weston, who had served more than five years in prison for a prior federal felony drug conviction, was Turner’s supplier.
Between July and October 2019, law enforcement intercepted calls and text messages from Weston’s cellphone and established that Weston was responsible for distributing more than 18 kilograms of cocaine, over 161 grams of heroin, and over 89 grams of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues during just that three-month period. Ultimately, the investigation of Weston led to 11 other defendants being charged with federal drug trafficking crimes.
This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.
Agencies involved in this OCDETF operation include the Drug Enforcement Administration Tampa District Office, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
More information about this case can be found at https://www.flmd.uscourts.gov or https://ecf.flmd.uscourts.gov