A man from central Illinois was caught by the police while attempting to traffic cocaine in Chicago, after which he has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison.
Last year, a jury convicted Tekoa Q. Tinch, aged 34, who is a citizen of Bloomington, Illinois, of possessing cocaine with the intention of distributing it in the city of Chicago.
In May 2018, Tinch attempted to purchase one kilogram of cocaine from a person inside a parking lot of a grocery store located in the Little Village neighbourhood of Chicago. Tinch did not know that the cocaine was fake, and the seller was none other than an undercover law enforcement officer.
Andrea R. Wood, U.S. District Judge, imposed the sentence on Tuesday, 19 April, after a hearing in federal court in Chicago. Judge Wood also discovered that Tinch also asked a person to buy two firearms for him in April 2018 and also that those firearms were in the vehicle in which Tinch drove to meet the undercover officer (dressed as a dealer) to buy drugs.
The imprisonment was sentenced by John R. Lausch, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Kristen de Tineo, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Robert J. Bell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; and David Brown, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.
IN THE GOVERNMENT’S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM, Assistant U.S. Attorney John D. Mitchell stated, “For many years, the city of Chicago and other regions in the Northern District of Illinois have been continuously invaded by drug trafficking, along with many violent crimes that often accompany drug trafficking. While drug trafficking is always a severe crime, the circumstances of defendant’s offence of conviction are extremely serious.”