Chicago Man Sentenced to 13 Years in Federal Prison for Attempting to Smuggle Nearly 3 Kilograms of Fentanyl onto Flight

LOS ANGELES – An Illinois man has been sentenced to 156 months in federal prison for checking a duffle bag containing nearly 3 kilograms of fentanyl at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the Justice Department announced today.

Jermaine Eggleston, 35, of Chicago, was sentenced on Monday by United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer.

At the conclusion of a three-day trial in April 2022, a jury found Eggleston guilty of one count of distribution of fentanyl.

On September 14, 2020, an x-ray machine alerted LAX security to a checked black duffle bag as containing suspicious, potentially concealed explosives. The bag was routed to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer for additional screening.

The officer opened the bag and found, inside a computer keyboard box, three parcels wrapped in tape, plastic wrap, and carbon paper. Eggleston checked the bag under his own name for a Los Angeles-to-New Orleans flight. Subsequent testing revealed that the parcels in total contained 2,986 grams of fentanyl.

Law enforcement estimates the fentanyl had a wholesale value of more than $250,000.

Airport police officers arrested Eggleston at his flight’s gate area. He was released from federal custody in October 2020, but in March 2021 he was arrested in Chicago while on pretrial release in this case for allegedly illegally possessing a firearm. He has remained in federal custody since that time.

“[Eggleston] sought to check luggage containing nearly three kilograms of fentanyl powder onto a plane – an act that, had [Eggleston] succeeded, would have risked the lives of not just the many eventual downstream users of the fentanyl, but also the passengers and crew of the plane,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, TSA, and the Los Angeles Airport Police investigated this case.

Assistant United States Attorney Lyndsi C. Allsop of the Violent and Organized Crime Section prosecuted this case.