Eleven Virginians have been sentenced for their roles in a violent interstate drug trafficking organization based in Hampton Roads. The organization was also responsible for a double homicide in Chesapeake.
Cortney Allen Conley, aka KO, 36, of Virginia Beach, was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison for a double murder in Chesapeake and his role in the drug operation.
The 12th defendant, Rashaun Marcquez Johnson, 28, of Virginia Beach, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 21, 2025. According to court records, he was also involved in a shootout that killed two people in Chesapeake.
According to court records and evidence presented at trial, between January 2020 and November 2022, Conley ran a large-scale drug trafficking organization that frequently sold drugs at pop-up shops which regularly appeared in new locations to avoid detection by law enforcement. The pop-up shops were frequently the target of robberies.
In 2021, Conley was robbed at gunpoint at a pop-up on Providence Road in Chesapeake. After the armed robbery, Conley and his co-conspirators allegedly were regularly armed while they trafficked drugs.
In July 2021, an armed individual attempted to rob a pop-up. Javaid Akhtar Reed, 27, of Chesapeake, and Aaron Butler Hunter, 38, of Virginia Beach, defended Conley’s drugs and drug proceeds. During the attempted robbery, Reed ordered the attempted robber out of the shop at gunpoint.
On May 13, 2022, two armed subjects attempted to rob the organization’s pop-up on Wintercress Way in Chesapeake. Conley and Johnson shot and killed the two subjects. During the gun battle, Davian Marcelis Jenkins, 27, of Suffolk, pistol-whipped one of the subjects as the subject lay dying in the foyer. Bullets flew across the hall into another apartment and hit a child’s play kitchen. Immediately afterward, Conley and Jenkins removed controlled substances, drug proceeds and firearms from the pop-up location and fled. Conley directed Jenkins to go back to the shooting scene and remove security cameras which had recorded the shootout. Jenkins removed one camera from the front door of the apartment. Conley then fled the state.
On Nov. 8, 2022, Conley was arrested in Virginia Beach at a pop-up shop he established after the double homicide. During the arrest, Conley jumped from a second story window and tried to run from the police.
On April 15, 2024, after a 10-day jury trial, Conley, Reed and Kyron Speller, 29, of Norfolk, were convicted for their involvement in the organization.
Conley was convicted of:
- continuing criminal enterprise
- possession with intent to distribute marijuana
- possession with intent to distribute psilocybin and psilocyn
- possessing, brandishing and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime
Sentencing
Other members of the organization who were previously sentenced include:
- Javaid Akhtar Reed: Sentenced Dec. 23, 2024, to 14 years, three months
- Corey Melic Blackwell: Sentenced July 12, 2024, to 13 years
- Aaron Hunter: Sentenced Sept. 26, 2024, to 10 years
- Amadeo Ilan Classen: Sentenced Nov. 7, 2024, to 10 years
- Kasheim Bryant: Sentenced Oct. 31, 2024, to seven years
- Davian Marcelis Jenkins: Sentenced Nov. 7, 2024, to four years
- Jeron D’Nell Cephus: Sentenced July 22, 2024, to three years, six months
- Kyron Speller: Sentenced Oct. 25, 2024, to three years, five months
- Lateya Conley: Sentenced Sept. 25, 2024, to three years
- Jasmine Deneen Cuffee: Sentenced Oct. 31, 2024, to one year, three months
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Crystal Graham
