Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. – On Jan. 31, 2017, Tommy Allen, a.k.a. Bert, 30, of Kingsport, Tenn., formerly of Forrest City, Ark., was sentenced by the Honorable R. Leon Jordan, U.S. District Court Judge, to serve 240 months in federal prison for distributing crack cocaine. Upon his release from prison, he will be on supervised release for five years. There is no parole in the federal system.

Tommy Allen pleaded guilty in June 2016 to a conspiracy to distribute 280 grams or more of crack cocaine. He was a member of a drug trafficking organization, involving 10 co-defendants, which obtained powder cocaine in Forrest City, Ark., and then transported it to Kingsport, Tenn., where it was “cooked” into crack cocaine and distributed in the Tri-Cities. Tommy Allen, the brother of the conspiracy’s leader, Billy Allen, a.k.a. “Grill,” distributed crack cocaine and fielded phone calls from customers ordering crack cocaine from the organization. Tommy Allen admitted to being conservatively responsible for distributing between 840 grams and 2.8 kilograms (approximately two to six pounds) of crack cocaine. He faced a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison as a result of trafficking in at least 280 or more grams of crack cocaine.

Agencies involved in this investigation included the Second Judicial District Drug Task Force, Kingsport Police Department, Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office, Bristol Police Department, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Internal Revenue Service, and Drug Enforcement Administration. J. Gregory Bowman, Assistant U.S. Attorney represented the United States.

This case was a result of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s drug supply reduction strategy. OCDETF was established in 1982 to conduct comprehensive, multi-level attacks on major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. Today, OCDETF combines the resources and expertise of its member federal agencies in cooperation with state and local law enforcement. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply.

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