Federal prosecutors charged fourteen suspects in an alleged crack and powder cocaine trafficking conspiracy that operated within 1,000 feet of Hendley Elementary School in Washington, D.C., with dealers allegedly selling drugs in broad daylight as children walked to and from class.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced the charges Wednesday after a two-year investigation that culminated in 19 search warrants, 20 arrests across Washington, D.C., and Maryland, and the seizure of 28 firearms, 2.4 kilograms of crack cocaine, one kilogram of powder cocaine, 29 grams of fentanyl, and 12 pounds of marijuana.
The scope of the operation, and the brazenness of the alleged dealers, tells a story about a neighborhood in the nation's capital where law enforcement had to spend two years building a case against a street gang that, federal authorities say, ran an open-air drug market steps from a schoolyard.
Each of the 14 defendants faces a conspiracy charge for distributing 280 grams or more of cocaine base and 500 grams or more of cocaine within 1,000 feet of Hendley Elementary School in the Washington Highlands neighborhood, Fox News reported. One defendant, Kivarrie Greene, 22, also faces an unlawful firearms-possession charge.
The named suspects range in age from 21 to 43: Tevin Moody, 32; Geraldo Landy, 38; Norman Moore, 36; Lenon Wright, 34; Ali McShay, 31; Lonnell Thomas, 27; Marquette Paris, 34; Jeremiah Prince, 21; Joseph Moore, 43; Raekwon Womak, 21; Greene; De'Lonte Jackson, 32; Derrick Manuel, 34; and Malik Heard, 25.
The FBI said the suspects were members of a street gang that operated on 4th Street. Authorities executed search warrants at locations tied to the suspects throughout the investigation, recovering the drugs and firearms the Justice Department catalogued.
Pirro said investigators observed at least 165 drug buys during the operation. That number alone, more than one sale every five days, on average, over two years, paints a picture of a trafficking scheme that was anything but discreet.
What makes this case particularly grim is the proximity to children. Federal prosecutors said drugs were routinely sold in the presence of school-aged kids walking to and from Hendley Elementary. The Justice Department released images showing suspected dealers on a Washington, D.C., street as children passed by.
Pirro did not hold back. In remarks announcing the charges, she called the suspects "dirtbags" and described the alleged activity as an assault on the community's most vulnerable residents.
"This is poison that is being peddled during the day within feet of a schoolyard where our children learn, play, and grow."
She went further, framing the drug sales as more than a narcotics violation. Pirro's office has been increasingly vocal about protecting D.C. children from the downstream effects of crime in the district.
"Selling cocaine near our kids isn't just illegal. It is an attack on the most vulnerable in our society. It endangers the children."
Pirro added that the operation "destroys families, and it fuels the violence and the chaos in the district that we have suffered for far too long."
One detail stood out from the rest. Authorities described an image showing a woman who allegedly brought a 5-year-old girl along to purchase cocaine, then walked away with the child while carrying the drugs. The woman's name and any charges filed against her were not disclosed in the announcement.
Pirro singled out the incident as a separate category of wrongdoing entirely.
"It's one thing to have a prosecution of dirtbags who were selling drugs in the area of schools, 1,000 feet from a d*** elementary school. It's a whole other level of crime, as far as I'm concerned, for this woman to bring a child to a cocaine sale and then walk along with the child while she's got the drugs on her."
That statement carried an implicit rebuke of the district's legal framework. Pirro said Washington, D.C., currently lacks a child-endangerment law, and she plans to ask the City Council to enact one. The fact that a jurisdiction of this size and profile does not already have such a statute on the books is itself a policy failure worth examining.
Pirro's push for new legislation fits a pattern. She has demanded school records to identify teens involved in violent incidents and has taken an aggressive posture toward accountability in the district since assuming her role.
DEA Special Agent-in-Charge Christopher Goumenis, who heads the agency's Washington Division, described the defendants in blunt terms.
"They have access to illicit drugs. They have access to firearms. They're violent criminals, and most of them are recidivists in these communities."
That last word, recidivists, deserves attention. If most of these defendants have prior records, the obvious question is why they were free to operate an alleged open-air drug market near a school for what authorities describe as an extended period. The two-year investigation timeline suggests the trafficking was well-established before federal authorities moved in.
The seizure inventory reinforces the scale. Twenty-eight firearms recovered from a single drug conspiracy is not a corner operation. Combined with kilograms of crack and powder cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana, the haul points to a well-supplied network.
Pirro's office has been active on multiple fronts in Washington. She confirmed a Secret Service agent was struck by a gunman's buckshot during a recent high-profile security incident, and her prosecutors have pushed boundaries in pursuing investigations across the district.
The cocaine ring charges arrive against a backdrop of persistent questions about public safety in the nation's capital. An embedded video tied to the Fox News coverage references a separate matter in which 13 D.C. police officers were accused of manipulating crime statistics to make the city appear safer, a detail that, if accurate, would compound the credibility problems facing the district's criminal-justice apparatus.
Washington Highlands, the neighborhood where Hendley Elementary sits, is no stranger to violence and drug activity. That federal prosecutors, not local authorities, brought this case speaks to a familiar dynamic: when local leadership fails to keep neighborhoods safe, the federal government steps in to do the job.
Pirro's prosecutors have not limited their activity to drug cases. They have also made unannounced visits to federal institutions as part of broader oversight efforts, signaling a willingness to push into uncomfortable territory.
Several questions remain open. It is unclear whether all 14 named defendants were among the 20 people arrested Wednesday, or whether some were charged but not yet in custody. The relationship between the 14 named in the indictment and the broader 20-arrest sweep across D.C. and Maryland has not been fully explained.
The identity of the woman who allegedly brought a 5-year-old to a cocaine buy has not been publicly released. Whether she faces charges, and under what statute, given Pirro's statement that D.C. lacks a child-endangerment law, is an open question that the U.S. Attorney's office will need to address.
The specific court handling the federal indictment and the case number have not been disclosed in public reporting so far. Nor have prosecutors detailed the exact statutes under which the conspiracy charges were brought, beyond the drug quantities and proximity to the school.
Pirro's office has shown a pattern of releasing evidence and making forceful public statements as part of a broader effort to reassert federal authority in the district.
Strip away the legal terminology and the press-conference language, and this case is about something simple. Fourteen people allegedly ran a cocaine operation so close to an elementary school that children walked past drug deals on their way to class. Authorities say they watched it happen at least 165 times before moving in. A woman allegedly brought a kindergarten-age child to buy cocaine. And the nation's capital does not even have a law on the books to charge someone with child endangerment.
That is not a gap in the legal code. It is a gap in priorities. The people of Washington Highlands, the parents who send their kids to Hendley Elementary, the families who live on 4th Street, did not create this problem. They are the ones who had to live with it while the system caught up.
When a city cannot protect children walking to school from drug dealers operating in plain sight, the failure is not abstract. It has an address, a school name, and fourteen faces now attached to a federal indictment. The question is whether anyone beyond the U.S. Attorney's office plans to treat it that way.
