PARTNERSHIP CRACKS DOWN ON DRUG ACTIVITY

Drug dealers beware: If you've got local Assistant District Attorney
Tim Severo prosecuting you, you're probably facing significant time
in the slammer. It's been more than two years since Severo was also
designated a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and since then,
countless drug dealers have been prosecuted under federal laws and
are serving federal time. New Hanover County District Attorney Ben
David and U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding will highlight the
success of the partnership and talk about its future at a news
conference Monday.

Severo's position has been funded by the Governor's Crime Commission
and the New Hanover County Commissioners, according to the U.S.
Attorney's office. The federal system allows prosecutors to
aggressively pursue drug dealers and criminal organizations as well
as net stiffer sentences, Severo said. "You can systematically go
after an organization and dismantle an entire organization," he said.
"The best handle you're going to get is going after the entire group,
not just a portion of it." Recently, an operation dubbed Seven Day
Ground netted the imprisonment of 11 people. The investigation has
uncovered criminal drug organizations in Atlanta, Georgia, and Texas
responsible for importing more than 300 kilograms of cocaine and a
kilogram of heroin into eastern North Carolina and Virginia,
according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

The final defendant, Michael Alexis Covington, a 41-year-old
Wilmington resident, was sentenced Jan. 6 to six years in prison for
buying cocaine and selling crack as well as illegally possessing a
handgun and shotgun as a felon. In November, a 41-year-old cocaine
supplier who tried to bribe a cop with drug money while moving drugs
from Houston to Wilmington was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Gratiniano Castillo, who had snuck into the country illegally,
pleaded guilty to conspiracy and cocaine distribution mainly in
Wilmington from 2005 until his arrest in July 2007.

Other people caught up in the sting, Lacy Jervay Tate and Shahzan
Mathur, both received 20 years in prison while Samuel Cofield was
sentenced to almost 18 years in prison, according to the U.S.
Attorney's office.

Cofield was accused of conspiring with Castillo to move drugs,
according to federal documents. Additionally, Shawn Lamar Vincent,
was sentenced to more than two years in prison for conspiring to
deliver cocaine, while Shannon Cantrell Bullard was also sentenced to
five years in federal prison for the same offense, federal court documents show.