Greenwich man gets 13 years for drug-dealing

January 22, 2010
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736

Byron K. Jones Jr. (DOB 11/17/69), of 1304 Berkley Rd., Greenwich Township in Gloucester County was sentenced today to 13 years in New Jersey state prison after a Gloucester County prosecutor told a judge he “has made it his employment to sell cocaine.”

Jones was even selling cocaine in Pennsylvania “while he was on parole for selling cocaine,” said Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Staci Scheetz in giving the justification for an extended prison term for Jones’ Dec. 10 conviction by a jury for possessing nearly three-quarters of an ounce of cocaine with intent to distribute.

The charges resulted from a Feb. 2, 2007 search of the defendant’s home. He was eligible for an extended term, as if his second-degree conviction had been a first-degree offense, because of prior narcotics convictions in Pennsylvania.

Jones will be ineligible for parole for six years and six months, Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. said. He receives credit for 416 days held in the Gloucester County Jail. Judge Marshall also scheduled an April 12 trial for Jones on a drug distribution charge that resulted from an undercover purchase, and that led to the search of his home. If convicted in that trial, he could be sentenced to a second, consecutive extended prison term.