Suffolk man sentenced in connection with drug trafficking ring

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, February 5, 2025

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A Suffolk man, Davian Marcelis Jenkins, 27, has been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in a violent drug trafficking organization that was responsible for a double homicide in Chesapeake. 

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia (USAVAE), the organization, led by Cortney Allen Conley, 36, of Virginia Beach, operated a large-scale, interstate drug trafficking operation, primarily using “pop-up” shops in the Hampton Roads area to avoid detection.

According to USAVAE, in May 2022, a deadly confrontation occurred at one of these “pop-up” shops on Wintercress Way in Chesapeake. Two individuals attempted to rob the location, resulting in a shootout where Conley and Rashaun Marcquez Johnson, 28, of Virginia Beach, fatally shot both would-be robbers. During the chaos, USAVAE says Jenkins physically assaulted one of the victims as he lay dying. Immediately after the shooting, Conley and Jenkins removed drugs, cash, and firearms from the pop-up shop, and Conley instructed Jenkins to remove security cameras that had captured the incident before fleeing the state.

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According to the media release, the organization had been operating since January 2020, and had a history of violence. In 2021, Conley was robbed at gunpoint at a pop-up on Providence Road, leading to members being armed while trafficking drugs. In July of the same year, a shop worker, Javaid Akhtar Reed, 27, of Chesapeake, along with Aaron Butler Hunter, 38, of Virginia Beach, defended the operation from an attempted robbery. Reed brandished a firearm and ordered the attempted robber out of the shop.

Conley, who was arrested in November 2022 after jumping out of a second story window to evade police, received the longest sentence of 40 years. Reed received a sentence of 14 years and 3 months, and other members such as Corey Melic Blackwell, Aaron Hunter, Kasheim Bryant, Amadeo Ilan Classen, and Kyron Speller received prison sentences ranging from one year, three months to 13 years. Lateya Conley received a 3-year sentence and Jasmine Deneen Cuffee received a sentence of 1 year and 3 months. Jeron D’Nell Cephus was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months. Johnson is scheduled to be sentenced in February 2025.