In Orange County last week, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents arrested a Virgin Islands man named in a new Florida indictment for allegedly conspiring with a federal transportation official to sell at least five kilograms of cocaine.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas F. McCormick, a former high-ranking federal prosecutor, advised Shawn Dowe, 29, of the drug trafficking charges and ordered him sent to answer at court in Miami.
According to the indictment unsealed earlier this month, Dowe conspired with Dwight Iva Durant, 44 years old and a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) supervisor.
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Durant was arrested in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands on Nov. 19; Dowe was arrested the following morning.
The DEA's West Palm Beach narcotics task force conducted the investigation with local Florida police, including officers from police in Sunrise, Jupiter, West Palm Beach, Boynton and Delrey Beach as well as with officers at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and TSA.
If convicted, the men could face a mandatory minimum punishment of 10 years in prison, according to the DEA.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.