Columbia drug kingpin atop a multi-state narcotics empire gets 27 years in prison

A 43-year-old man who ran a major three-state cocaine and heroin distribution ring out of Columbia was sentenced to 27 years in prison on Friday by a federal judge.

“This defendant was at the top of the pyramid,” said U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson, as the one-time drug kingpin, Jermaine “Big Dog” Southall, stood before him in an orange jail jumpsuit, his hands and feet in metal manacles. The charge against him was drug trafficking conspiracy.

That “pyramid” included having a trusted courier drive regularly to New York City with up to several hundred thousand dollars in a hidden compartment, buy pounds of heroin or cocaine from a supplier there and drive back to Columbia, according to evidence in the case.

Once in Columbia, the illicit drugs were stored in a “stash house,” cut up into small quantities, sold to retailers who distributed and resold the product around the Midlands area. Southall operated four “stash houses” in the Columbia area — places where the drugs would be safe from the law or others in the drug trade — according to evidence in the case.

One of the “stash houses” was a Columbia restaurant called “L’il Mama’s,” the judge said in open court. The restaurant is no longer operating.

Sources familiar with the case said there was no easy way to compute the number of street-level customers who eventually bought Southall’s drugs but they numbered in the hundreds and may have been more than 1,000. Over time, the case involved millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, the sources said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Garner, lead prosecutor on the case, told Judge Anderson that prosecutors could have sought a stiffer sentence, but agreed to drop some charges because Southall had been helpful to law enforcement and because he agreed to plead guilty without fighting the government at a trial.

Anderson could have given Southall a sentence of up to life in prison, but noted that the government and defense had agreed on a lesser sentence. At the age he will be when he leaves prison, Anderson noted, Southall will be unlikely to commit more crimes.

In court Friday, Southall’s attorney, Rose Mary Parham of Florence, gave a fuller picture of Southall’s life, which included suffering physical and verbal abuse as a child.

“He began smoking marijuana at 15 and he has used drugs all his life,” Parham told the judge.

Southall is also in poor health and has been diagnosed with “congestive heart failure, sleep apnea and high blood pressure” — all conditions which put his health at higher risk if he contracts the potentially fatal coronavirus in prison.

Noting Southall’s poor health, Judge Anderson agreed to recommend he be sent to Butner, a federal prison in North Carolina that has far better medical facilities than most federal prisons.

Southall has six children, the youngest of which is three, and some were living in his house at the time of his arrest. None of the three mothers of his children are able to take care of them, so he was a “single father,” Parham told the judge.

“He truly regrets letting his children down,” Parham told the judge.

Southall’s mother, Carol Roberts, 63, wept as she asked the judge for mercy. “If you can find it in your heart, give him another chance.”

Southall — a stocky bespectacled man with close cropped hair — apologized. “I’m just sorry for being involved in all this mess. I had a lot of things going on.”

He spoke about having to look after his children and finished up by saying, “To my mother, I am sorry. I apologize.”

The case began several years ago with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department getting a tip about local drug dealing.

When it became apparent that the drug operation involved several states, the department called on the DEA, which has federal jurisdiction, to help out. DEA also has more resources, and the case eventually involved multiple phone wiretaps, GPS trackers on numerous cars, a half-dozen search warrants, undercover drug purchases, hidden cameras and informants.

“It takes a long time to develop these cases, where you go after the big people,” said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

Lott said he wasn’t sorry Southall got 27 years for importing drugs into Columbia..

“He deserves every day of it,” said the sheriff. “Unfortunately, we have people in our community who prey on people who have weaknesses.”