CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Eleven people have been sentenced to prison for their part in a violent drug trafficking organization responsible for a double homicide in Chesapeake, and another person awaits sentencing. Most recently, one of the 11 was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
According to court documents and trial evidence, between January 2020 and November 2022, Cortney Allen Conley, 36, of Virginia Beach, ran a large-scale violent interstate drug trafficking organization that primarily operated in the Hampton Roads area, selling drugs at pop-up shops and going to new sites to evade police detection.
Conley was robbed at gunpoint at a pop-up on Providence Road in Chesapeake in 2021, and after that, she and others involved were regularly armed while involved in drug trafficking, according to court documents and evidence.
In July 2021, someone attempted an armed robbery at a pop-up, and pop-up workers including Javaid Akhtar Reed, 27, of Chesapeake, and Aaron Butler Hunter, 38, of Virginia Beach, defended the drugs and their proceeds, and Reed ordered the attempted robber out of the shop at gunpoint, court documents and evidence stated.
It was at another attempted robbery at a May 13, 2022 pop-up that led to the double-homicide on Wintercress Way in Chesapeake, court documents and evidence stated. Two people there tried to rob the pop-up and Conley and Rashaun Marcquez Johnson, 28, of Virginia Beach, shot and killed the two people, according to the evidence and court documents. The two victims, John Mcinnis and Darren Belardo, died of gunshot wounds, according to police.
Another person, Davian Marcelis Jenkins, 27, of Suffolk, pistol-whipped one of the two victims as they lay dying in the foyer, according to the evidence and court documents, and during the shootout, bullets few into another apartment and struck a child’s play kitchen.
Conley and Jenkins then took the drugs, their proceeds and firearms from the pop-up and left the scene, and Conley had Jenkins go back to the scene of the shooting to remove security cameras that had recorded the shootout, evidence and court documents stated, with Jenkins taking out one camera from the front door of the apartment, and Conley leaving the state.
Conley was arrested Nov. 8, 2022 at a Virginia Beach pop-up she set up after the double homicide, but not before trying to evade police by jumping through a second-story window, according to evidence and court documents.
In April 2024 following a 10-day jury trial, Conley, Reed and Kyron Speller, 29, of Norfolk, were convicted for their involvement in the drug trafficking organization. Conley was convicted of the following charges: continuing criminal enterprise; possession with intent to distribute marijuana; possession with intent to distribute psilocybin and psilocyn; possessing, brandishing, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Conley was sentenced Jan. 30 to 40 years in prison. Others who were part of the organization and previously sentenced include:
- Javaid Akhtar Reed, sentenced Dec. 23, 2024 to 14 years and three months in prison
- Corey Melic Blackwell, sentenced July 12, 2024 to 13 years in prison
- Aaron Hunter, sentenced Sept. 26, 2024 to 10 yeas in prison
- Kasheim Bryant, sentenced Oct. 31, 2024 to seven years in prison
- Amadeo Ilan Classen, sentenced Nov. 7, 2024 to 10 years in prison
- Davian Marcelis Jenkins, sentenced Nov. 7, 2024 to four years in prison
- Jeron D’Nell Cephus, sentenced July 22, 2024 to three years and six months in prison
- Kyron Speller, sentenced Oct. 25, 2024 to three years and five months in prison
- Lateya Conley, sentenced Sept. 25, 2024 to three years in prison
- Jasmine Deneen Cuffee, sentenced Oct. 31, 2024 to one year and three months in prison.
Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 21.