LENOIR MAN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN FEDERAL PRISON ON
CRACK COCAINE CONSPIRACY
Lengthy Investigation Has Resulted in 88 Convictions
CHARLOTTE, NC - United States Attorney Gretchen C. F. Shappert for the Western District of North Carolina; Special Agent in Charge Nathan T. Gray of the Charlotte Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Robin Pendergraft, Director, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Caldwell County, North Carolina Sheriff Alan Jones, and Lenoir Police Chief Joey Reynolds announce that Malik Montrease Moore, 29, of Lenoir, North Carolina was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole by Judge Richard L. Voorhees in federal district court in Statesville on Wednesday, October 10, 2007.
Malik Montrease Moore was indicted by a federal grand jury on August 23, 2005. He was convicted on October 4, 2006 of participating in a federal drug conspiracy, which conspired to possess with intent to distribute in excess of 50 grams of cocaine base. The government’s investigation of this conspiracy, code-named “Operation Carousel,” began in 1996. To date, 91 defendants have been indicted. Eighty-eight have pled guilty or have been convicted at trial, two are pending trial, and one died before conclusion of his case. Operation Carousel is an
Organized Crime & Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) case, under the auspices of the FBI Catawba Valley Task Force.
Evidence presented at the trial of Defendant Malik Moore included information regarding undercover drug purchases from the defendant in Lenoir during the conspiracy, his apprehension with over $ 5,000 in U.S. currency at the time of his arrest on September 1, 2005, over 12,000 phone calls made to and from a phone identified as his during a roughly three-month period in the summer of 2005, and defendant’s admissions regarding drug distribution instructions made to his associates from a phone in the Caldwell County Jail.
The case was tried by the Unites States Attorney, Gretchen Shappert, who praised law enforcement for their persistence and hard work in this large and lengthy conspiracy investigation. In particular, Shappert thanked Special Agent Jeff Eddins of the North Carolina SBI and Investigator David Barbour of the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office for their work as the lead case agents in the investigation and at trial.
Shappert said, “The success of this prosecution was a direct result of the hard work of state and local law enforcement, in conjunction with the FBI. It required hours and hours of law enforcement time to conduct the undercover operations which implicated Malik Moore in this conspiracy, to identify the thousands of phone calls associated with the cell phone that he was using during the conspiracy, and to transcribe the tapes of his recorded conversations. Malik Moore was a major drug trafficker. His conviction and life sentence will discourage other individuals who are tempted to sell drugs, in hopes of a quick profit.”
Federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole. |
