A local man has been sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a drug conspiracy charge.
According to court documents, Marcquell Patterson, 43, of Eupora was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Debra M. Brown to 42 months on one count of conspiracy to distribute marijuana. She sentenced him on Sept. 7 at the U.S. Federal Building in Greenville.
Patterson was further sentenced to three years supervised release following his release from prison. A special condition of supervision is that he successfully complete a program of testing and treatment for substance abuse.
Upon a motion of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Brown dismissed another count of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and two counts of interstate travel in aid of a racketeering enterprise. Some of those charges were included in a superseding indictment.
Patterson has been directed to report to the U.S. Federal Correctional Institution in Montgomery, Ala., on Dec. 5 to begin serving his sentence. He was among 14 codefendants indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 8, 2020, following a joint investigation targeting drug trafficking in the Northern District of Mississippi.
On Oct. 28 of that year, agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and local law enforcement agencies located and arrested 11 individuals in Clay, Grenada, Oktibbeha and Webster counties, including Patterson.
According to a news release at the time, the arrests were the culmination of a yearlong investigation referred to as “Operation: House of Shards.” The investigation targeted the large-scale distribution of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana within Webster and six other counties. During the investigation, agents determined that large quantities of drugs were brought into north Mississippi from the western United States. Agents received significant assistance from the Arkansas State Police and Phoenix Police Department, the release stated.
Patterson signed a plea agreement on March 20 of this year and pleaded guilty to the lone conspiracy charge on April 20 in Greenville. According to the plea agreement, Patterson agreed to forfeit $142,000 seized from him on April 3, 2020, in Phoenix.
U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner prosecuted the case. Patterson was represented by attorneys Edward Bogen Jr. of Leland and Rhea Tannehill Jr. of Oxford.
