CHARLOTTE AMALIE — Two Pennsylvania women were handed sentences of 5.2 years and 6.4 years for a crack cocaine conviction in federal court.
Ngoc Nguyen, 22, and Fendi Brooks, 26, both from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were sentenced Thursday for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, U.S. Attorney Gretchen C.F. Shappert said.
U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Gomez sentenced Nguyen to 63 months imprisonment and Brooks to 77 months imprisonment.
Judge Gomez also sentenced both Nguyen and Brooks to five years of supervised release and 300 hours of community service.
According to court documents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Cyril E. King Airport discovered 12 brick-like bundles of what appeared to be a white powdery substance smuggled into a suitcase Brooks had checked in under her name but that both Brooks and Nguyen claimed to share.
Subsequent lab testing revealed that eleven of those bundles contained cocaine powder (approximately 10.9 kilograms), while one of the packages contained a kilogram of cocaine base (crack) (approximately 1.01 kilograms).
Brooks and Nguyen each had $1,300 in $100 bills on their persons.
“Lock them up no breaks for nobody,” Kenneth Moolenaar, Jr. commented on Facebook. “They think our islands are a big Joke and they can just dump their garbage down our throats.And people stop being test Rats.”
This case was investigated by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Meredith J. Edwards.