Law enforcement officers indicted in drug smuggling charges appear in federal court in Raleigh
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- More than half of the people busted in Operation Rockfish were in federal court in Raleigh Wednesday for their detention hearings.
Operation Rockfish was a year-and-a-half long FBI investigation targeting 13 current and former North Carolinian law enforcement officers and two civilians, accused of running drugs for a fake drug trafficking operation (DTO).
The group was arrested on April 30 -- half at a regional airport and half at a warehouse in Northampton County - during the FBI's 16th undercover operation infiltrating the alleged crime ring.
In court, prosecutors played half-dozen video clips, showing various combinations of the 15 defendants, taking bribes and hiding drugs given to them by undercover agents pretending to run the DTO.
In one, Lann Tjuan Clanton, a corrections officer in Virginia, who is described by prosecutors as the ringleader of the group, appears in front of two undercover agents and steals $10,000 from them saying, 'We can do this two ways. I can take it and leave or I can call my friends."
The sting operation was sharply criticized by family members of the defendants. One man who identified himself as a friend said it seemed like the federal government set them up.
An FBI agent on the stand admitted undercover agents set all the contours of the sting - how much money, how much cocaine, how much heroine, and, in some cases, whether the defendants brought guns to the exchanges.
Wednesday's court proceeding was a detention hearing. The judge put off until Thursday deciding whether the defendants will stay locked up until their trial or will get to go home to their families.
Here's the full list of the defendants:
-Lann Tjuan Clanton, 36, a correctional officer with the Virginia Department of Corrections;
-Ikeisha Jacobs, 32, a deputy with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Jason Boone, 29, a deputy with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Wardie Vincent Jr., 35, formerly of the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Adrienne Moody, 39, a correctional officer with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety;
-Cory Jackson, 43, formerly of the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Jimmy Pair Jr., 48, a deputy with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Curtis Boone, 31, a deputy with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office;
-Antonio Tillmon, 31, a police officer with the Windsor City Police Department;
-Alaina Sue Kam Ling, 27, a correctional officer with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety;
-Kavon Phillips, 25, a correctional officer with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety;
-Crystal Pierce, 31, of Raleigh, North Carolina;
-Alphonso Ponton, 42, a correctional officer with the Virginia Department of Corrections;
-Thomas Jefferson Allen II, 37, a deputy with the Northampton County Sheriff's Office; and
-Tosha Dailey, 31, a 911 dispatch operator for Northampton County.
