Narcotics Middleman Sentenced To 12 Years

Jashon ​“Deuce” Spearman brought more than $30,000 to a White Castle to pick up 7,119 bags of fentanyl. The authorities caught him — and now he’ll spend up to 144 months in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Sarala V. Nagala handed down that sentence on Wednesday. 

Spearman’s arrest in 2022 came months after the New Haven Police Department and New Haven Safe Streets/Gang Task Force began investigating him and others for their role in a drug distribution scheme in the West Hills neighborhood. Agents used video surveillance, wiretaps, and controlled purchases to find that Spearman was buying drugs from New York — and receiving cocaine in the mail from Puerto Rico — then distributing them to sellers in an operation that largely centered around the McConaughy Terrace housing complex located on South Genesee Street. 

Officials intercepted a phone call between Spearman and Bronx-based fentanyl distributor James Hillard arranging to meet the next morning — Feb. 4, 2022 — at a White Castle in the Bronx, according to sentencing memos in his case. The agents were able to set up surveillance in preparation. 

At 8:30 that morning, agents watched Spearman pull into the White Castle parking lot, drive to a side-street alongside Hillard’s car, and exit his own car to enter Hillard’s. Then, officers made the arrest of both Spearman and Hillard. 

In June 2023, Spearman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, as well as 40 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl, and a quantity of heroin and crack cocaine. Now, almost two years after the arrest was made and having been detained ever since, Spearman has received his final sentence of 144 months. 

The U.S. Attorney’s office pushed for a range of 150 – 188 months in federal prison, citing the scope of the operation and the fact that this wasn’t Spearman’s first drug-related offense. 

Spearman’s attorney asked the judge to consider less time — the mandatory minimum of 120 months. Spearman, who is currently 36 years old, grew up in the Church Street South housing projects, which closed in 2018 and had been known as ​“The Jungle” for the high level of gang activity there.

“As we have stated, the Defendant was raised in what can only be described as one of the worst neighborhoods in the state of Connecticut,” Spearman’s memorandum states. ​“The infestations in Church Street South were exceeded only by the gangs and daily shootings outside the building.” 

Spearman’s attorney argued that Spearman’s difficult upbringing impacted his decision-making abilities and cited relevant studies that made similar claims about children who witness violence and crime: ​“The studies cited herein, and common sense do not lie. Jashon Spearman was born into an area of New Haven that made it almost certain that he would become involved in crime; an all too often statistic of life for poor people of color from our inner cities.”

U.S. Attorney Vanessa Avery and her colleagues countered in a memo that Spearman chose ​“to make a lot of money as a drug dealer and perpetuate some of the same conditions in the McConaughy Terrace complex” as he grew up amid.

Meanwhile, the mother of Spearman’s daughter cited the impact on the next generation, in a letter to the judge appealing for leniency so that the daughter will not ​“pay for her father’s mistakes. Too many African American children go without being raised by their fathers and I do not want my daughter to be a statistic. … My daughter deserves for her father to be in her major milestones in her life, birthdays, graduations, and everything else in between.”

The judge split the difference between the sentencing requests, adding five years of supervised release to the length of incarceration.