A District man has copped to both gun and drug raps, taking the hit for toting heat and a stash of illegal substances in Northwest Washington's Chinatown. Christopher Norece Mitchell, 25, owned up to possessing a trio of loaded firearms along with drugs set to hit the streets, according to a Department of Justice release.
In what unfolded during the broad daylight of April 20, 2023, the cops zoomed in on a bunch of guys hanging out where they shouldn't have been; as they scattered, one tossed a bag filled with weed, a scale, and other drug-peddling paraphernalia plus a key to an SUV into the trash, later Mitchell shows up, says the ride's his mom's, and lets the cops search him, and boom—they find a cool $4,000 and more drugs on him, including fentanyl and N,N-Dimethylpentylone, a synthetic upper that's got no place on the street legally.
Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has penciled in Mitchell's date with destiny for July 9, after he owned up to one count of illegal firearm possession due to a past conviction and one count of pushing N,N-Dimethylpentylone.
The feds threw the book at Mitchell in May 2023, and since snapping on the cuffs the next day, he hasn't sniffed freedom, with his previous run-ins with the law snatching away his right to pack heat; now he's staring down up to 15 years in the slammer plus a hefty $250,000 fine for the gun charge, and the drug rap could tack on another 30 years and up to $2 million more in fines, but it's all up to how the court's feeling after mulling over the guidelines and the whole legal shebang.
This collar was a group effort, courtesy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Metropolitan Police Department, with a little backup from the Drug Enforcement Administration's lab hotshots and the FBI's brainiacs in Quantico, Virginia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul V. Courtney is wrangling the prosecution after the grand jury served Mitchell his legal platter.
