A federal judge yesterday sentenced 34-year-old Jamal Binford to life in prison, plus a mandatory consecutive 10 years, after a jury found he ordered the murder of his uncle to protect a drug trafficking operation. Binford, who has lived in both Dallas and Cincinnati, was convicted in February 2025. Prosecutors say the killing was carried out to silence a relative who had been pushing Binford to pay a drug debt.
U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II called the slaying a "cold-blooded execution" and said Binford "ordered the execution and is equally responsible for the murder," according to WKRC. The station reported that the sentence was handed down yesterday in federal court.
Prosecutors' account of the operation
Court documents and trial testimony, as summarized by the U.S. Attorney's Office, described Binford as posing as a boxing promoter who recruited young fighters, then used them as "soldiers" in a narcotics enterprise. Prosecutors told jurors the conspiracy moved large quantities of drugs between May and November 2021, including kilograms of fentanyl and cocaine and hundreds of pounds of marijuana, and that violence was used to enforce the operation. That evidence, the office said, supported guilty verdicts on five federal counts.
How prosecutors say the plot unfolded
According to WKRC, prosecutors alleged that Binford paid co-defendants Antwan Coach Jr. and Markel Hardy a total of $2,000 to kill his uncle, Deonte Nuckols, after Nuckols had been texting him about a drug debt. Local reporting and court records also linked Binford to the July 5, 2021 robbery and fatal shooting of Kamar Williams in North College Hill, according to that reporting.
Charges and sentence
Binford was convicted on five counts, including participating in a narcotics conspiracy, being an accessory after the fact, murder in connection with a drug trafficking conspiracy, and two firearms counts, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Federal records say Binford was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in February 2023 and faced a statutory range that included a mandatory minimum of 20 years and up to life in prison before the court imposed life plus a consecutive 10 years.
The case highlights prosecutors' position that fentanyl and other high-volume narcotics trafficking can be tightly tied to violent enforcement and murder. Local coverage of the trial and conviction pointed to a pattern of investigators tracking drug proceeds and communications that connected alleged ring leaders to street violence and retaliatory killings.
Binford is to be turned over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence, court records and government press materials note that appeals and post-trial motions remain possible as the case moves through the federal system.
