Erie man sentenced to more than four and a half years in prison for cocaine violations

 

Date: April 5, 2024

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Erie, PA — A resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 57 months in prison on his conviction of violating federal narcotics laws, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today.

United States District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter imposed the sentence on Kechawn Jabre Douglas.

According to information presented to the Court, Douglas engaged in a conspiracy with others to distribute multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine within the Western District of Pennsylvania from in and around February 2022 to May 2022. Douglas admitted responsibility for conspiring to distribute seven kilograms of cocaine.

Assistant United States Attorney Paul S. Sellers prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.

United States Attorney Olshan commended the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Erie Police Department, Pennsylvania State Police, Oil City Police Department, Titusville Police Department, Franklin Police Department, and United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, in coordination with the United States Postal Inspection Service, Erie County Detectives, and Millcreek Police Department, for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Douglas.

This prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multiagency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.