Gastonia man gets 25 years in federal prison for drug conspiracy

A Gastonia man was sentenced in Charlotte Monday to more than 25 years in prison on a federal drug conspiracy charge and a supervised release violation, said U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose.

Chief U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney also ordered Alex Lenard McCoy, 32, to serve five years under court supervision after he is released from prison. Federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.

McCoy and codefendants Mickey Burris, Rodney Moore, and Eric Briggs ran a drug conspiracy that sold crack cocaine in Gaston County and elsewhere, according to court documents and Monday’s sentencing hearing.

McCoy led the conspiracy and trafficked in drugs while under federal supervision for a previous drug conviction, court records show. Records show McCoy maintained a house for trafficking and trafficked more than a kilogram of crack cocaine. Arresting officers seized more than $7,000 that prosecutors said was drug proceeds.

He pleaded guilty last June to one count of drug trafficking conspiracy. His codefendants were sentenced earlier: Burris to 120 months in prison; Moore to 51 months; Briggs to six months.

The prosecutions are the result of an investigation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, a joint federal, state and local cooperative approach to combating drug trafficking.

This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Gastonia man gets 25 years in federal prison for drug conspiracy."