United States Drug Enforcement Administration

CHICAGO — Robert Bell, Special Agent in Charge of Drug Enforcement Administration-Chicago Division, and U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch, Jr., announced that a central Illinois man has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for attempting to traffic cocaine in Chicago.

A jury last year convicted Tekoa Q. Tinch, 34, of Bloomington, Ill., of attempting to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute. Tinch in May 2018 attempted to buy a kilogram of cocaine from an individual in a grocery store parking lot in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. Unbeknownst to Tinch, the cocaine was fake and the seller was an undercover law enforcement officer.

U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood imposed the sentence Tuesday after a hearing in federal court in Chicago. Judge Wood also found that Tinch directed an individual to purchase two firearms for Tinch in April 2018, and that those firearms were in the vehicle when Tinch drove to the meeting with the undercover officer.

The sentence was also announced by Kristen de Tineo, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“For many years the City of Chicago and other areas in the Northern District of Illinois have been plagued by drug trafficking, along with the violent crime that often accompanies drug trafficking,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John D. Mitchell argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.  “While drug trafficking is always a serious crime, the circumstances of defendant’s offense of conviction are particularly serious.”