A Saline County man accused of cocaine trafficking in connection with a 2019 indictment went on trial Monday in federal court, in a trial expected to last up to three days that could result in a life sentence if he is convicted of the most serious charges.
OC Rawls, 49, of Benton, was indicted in late 2019 along with five other people after a five-month investigation conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration utilizing controlled narcotics buys, covert surveillance and wiretaps that prosecutors said implicated Rawls and several other people in cocaine trafficking in Central Arkansas.
Four of his co-defendants, including Rawls' brother, Tauji Laewon Rawls, 47, have pleaded guilty to charges ranging from felon in possession of a firearm to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and two have been sentenced to prison. One co-defendant. Bobby Charles Burks, is a fugitive.
After the jury of seven men, five women and one alternate was seated, U.S. Attorneys Anne Gardner and Jordan Crews began laying out the government's case.
Three U.S. Drug Enforcement agents and a confidential informant whose 2019 arrest launched the investigation into Rawls' alleged drug trafficking activities testified for about 2½ hours Monday, with investigators walking jurors through the investigation and the confidential informant providing confirmation of the details of a number of controlled buys.
Gardner told jurors the controlled buys of cocaine from Rawls began in February 2019 and a wiretap on his cell phone that began in April 2019 revealed conversations related to the conspiracy between Rawls and co-defendant Kevion Littlejohn, who was arrested May 8, 2019 with about two kilograms of cocaine and $56,000 in cash. Gardner said Littlejohn often ferried cash to Houston, Texas to purchase cocaine to bring it back to Arkansas.
"He also communicated with others to whom he distributed the cocaine and from whom he sought to purchase cocaine in Little Rock," Gardner said.
Gardner said Littlejohn was arrested on his way to Houston with "two kilos of poor-quality cocaine and $56,000 with which to purchase two new kilos of cocaine."
Littlejohn pleaded guilty June 1 to one count of conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller and awaits sentencing.
After Rawls was arrested by DEA agents in November 2019, Gardner said he continued his efforts to traffic cocaine.
"You will hear jail calls made from the Pulaski County Detention Center by Mr. Rawls to Kenneth Johnson, his nephew, instructing Mr. Johnson how to distribute cocaine the police had missed," she said.
Gardner likened the various components of the case to pieces of a puzzle, with the pieces consisting of controlled drug buys, the wiretap of Rawls' phone, search warrants on Rawls' residences and of those of his co-conspirators, and the recorded calls from jail.
"Put the pieces of the puzzle together and you will find that Mr. Rawls conspired to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine and that, in fact, he did distribute cocaine to the confidential informant," Gardner said.
Rawls' attorney, John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock, told jurors that much of the testimony Gardner and Crews intend to elicit from witnesses comes from co-conspirators and informants trying to deal with government prosecutors to lighten their own sentences.
"They have incentive to testify," Hall said. "That's what you need to consider when you go back to deliberate ... what they have to gain from their testimony."
Any gaps in the government's hard evidence against his client would be filled in by those witnesses, Hall said, as he attempted to cast doubt on the credibility of such witnesses.
"What about the missing pieces?" Hall asked. "That's what this case is about, the missing pieces."
Matt Newcomb, a special agent with the DEA office in Little Rock, testified as an expert witness Monday, explaining to jurors that most cocaine that arrives in the U.S. is manufactured in South America and from there is transported into Mexico and on to various locations in the U.S.
"For us here in Central Arkansas, the Little Rock area, we predominately see cocaine coming from source cities like Dallas, Texas, and Houston, Texas," Newcomb said.
Newcomb testified that as cocaine is broken into smaller and smaller amounts for sale to other distributors and eventually to the end user, the price per unit rises.
"Just like any product, you buy it in bulk you get a little bit cheaper because it's going to be sold again," he said.
Common retail amounts, he said, are 3.5 gram quantities -- known as an "8-ball" representing one-eighth of an ounce -- as well as grams and half-grams.
The DEA agent also explained how cocaine is cut with other materials to increase profits, how the drug trafficking hierarchy is structured, how confidential sources are recruited and used and how controlled buys are conducted.
Newcomb explained how drug traffickers will "front" drugs to trusted associates, requiring no payment until after the drugs are sold, which he said was a typical arrangement with the confidential informant used in a number of drug buys during the investigation.
Stephen Briggs, an officer with Arkansas State Police who serves as a task force officer assigned to the DEA, identified several quantities of cocaine entered into evidence as the product of controlled buys executed during the investigation.
He said the investigation was complicated by Rawls' tendency to show up unannounced at the informant's home, once to drop off 9 ounces of cocaine when the informant was away that no one was expecting but that the DEA would have to pay for.
He said efforts were made to put Rawls off on payment for the drugs to allow time for agents to get into place and to provide the buy money to the informant.
"We don't want him showing up again at the [confidential source]'s house trying to collect some money that he doesn't have," Briggs said.
The government's case resumes at 8:30 a.m. today with Briggs back on the witness stand.