Two out of 20 people have admitted their roles in a drug trafficking organization that distributed massive amounts of cocaine and crack cocaine across Burlington County, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger announced on Wednesday.

The drug trafficking network ran its course between July and September of 2019 when all 20 members operated in various roles in distributing cocaine and crack cocaine across Burlington County including in Willingboro, Burlington City, Burlington Township, Bordentown Township, and Edgewater Park.

Attorney Sellinger said that law enforcement learned the two members of the network, who have now admitted their roles in the ring, got their drug supply from co-conspirators in the Philadelphia area among other places, and then redistributed the cocaine, some of which was made into crack cocaine, for money to other conspirators, drug dealers and users in Burlington County and other places as well.

The drug trafficking network came to an end, thanks in part to law intercepting communications between the conspirators on issues involving sales and customer satisfaction.

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Herbert Mays, 65, of Willingboro, is one of the men who has admitted his role in the network by pleading guilty in Trenton federal court to Counts One and Two of a superseding indictment charging him with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 280 grams of crack cocaine.

Julius Thigpen, 60, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the other member who has admitted his guilty by pleading guilty to a superseding information charging him with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine.

There are ten other members of the drug trafficking conspiracy – Andre Perkins, Brandon Watts, Craig Moore, John Petrovich, Mecca Grant, Nathaniel McCoy, Ronnie Dawson, Samantha Bolhert, Teron Huggins, and Tracy Williams – who previously pleaded guilty while charges against eight other defendants are pending.

Mays is looking at a mandatory penalty of 10 years in prison, a maximum potential penalty of life in prison, and up to a $10 million fine.

Thipgen is facing a mandatory penalty of five years in prison, a maximum potential penalty of 40 years in prison, and up to a $5 million fine.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Martha K. Nye of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Trenton and Andrew B. Johns of the Criminal Division in Camden.

Defense counsel:
Mays: Scott Krasny Esq., Trenton.
Thigpen: Lawrence Welle Esq., Red Bank, New Jersey.

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