A Memphis man, Jeffery "Bud B" Sevier, has been handed down a 198-month federal prison sentence for his leadership role in an armed drug trafficking gang known as the Memphis Mob. The U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that U.S. District Court Judge Mark S. Norris also mandated a subsequent four-year supervised release once Sevier's prison term is served.
During his trial and sentencing, it was revealed that the Memphis Mob operated from a house in North Memphis where narcotics were sold, and on one March day in 2019, the theft of drugs from the establishment resulted in gunfire, one gunshot victim was seen fleeing the scene, it was a chaos that brought the police to their doorsteps. The incidents caught on surveillance captured both the selling activities and the violence, which affected five individuals, including a minor, and led to Sevier's arrest; he initially gave false information to law enforcement.
The investigation was a cooperative effort spanning multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the local Memphis Police Department and Shelby County Sheriff's Office. As a result of these joint operations, Acting Special Agent in Charge Jason Stankiewicz remarked, per the U.S. Attorney's Office, “The ATF will continue to use its resources to combat illegal firearm possession, drug distribution, and violent acts of crime,” reaffirming his agency's commitment to collaboration for the sake of public safety.
This case fell under the umbrella of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) initiative, which aims to dismantle significant drug trafficking operations and criminal enterprises by bridging federal, state, and local law enforcement resources and Assistant United States Attorneys Greg Allen and Michelle Kimbril-Parks led the prosecution, securing the conviction for the conspiracy to possess to distribute cocaine for which Sevier was accountable for an impressive 4.5 kilograms of cocaine, and the orchestrated sales operation out of the gang's base, which they had to move following the shooting incident eventually.
