20-year sentence given on drug plea
Trinity Standard - December 2007

GROVETON – A 35-year-old Crockett man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday, Nov. 26, after accepting a last-minute plea bargain agreement involving a Trinity County drug deal.

District Attorney Joe Ned Dean said Willie James Jones was scheduled to go to trial this week on a felony charge of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver.

 “We were all set to pick a jury this morning and were getting ready to go to trial when he agreed to enter a guilty plea,” Dean said.

The DA said he had offered Jones a 15-year term as part of a plea bargain about a month ago but the man rejected it at that time.

“I may have been able to get an even longer sentence if we had gone to trial, but this way there is no appeal,” Dean added.

Jones was arrested in Crockett in connection with a pair of drug deals that occurred in Trinity and Crockett on March 9, Dean said.

A second charge of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver was pending against Jones in Houston County. Dean said Jones has also agreed to plead guilty to that charge in exchange for a sentence that will run concurrently with the 20-year term he was given in Trinity County.

Jones’ arrest came as part of an undercover narcotics investigation conducted earlier this year by the Deep East Texas Narcotics Task Force.

Dean said Jones had agreed to sell one ounce of cocaine to a confidential informant who was working with a Texas Department of Public Safety narcotics officer.

“They agreed to meet in Trinity to make the deal. The confidential informant gave Jones the money and Jones handed over the drugs,” Dean said.

The deal went down in the parking lot of the T-19 convenience store located on Highway 19 North in Trinity.

When the drugs were turned over to the DPS officer, they were weighed and it was discovered Jones had given them only half an ounce – not the full ounce for which the informant had paid.

The informant then telephoned Jones to complain about being shorted and Jones agreed to provide him with another half ounce if he would come to Crockett to pick it up.

After the informant received the second half-ounce package of cocaine, it also was turned over to the DPS officer and Jones was subsequently arrested and charged in connection with the Trinity and Crockett drug deals.