News

Marcus Lydell Molden, Jr, who was recently listed on the Atlanta Police Department’s top five fugitives list, has pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon. In addition to the federal charges, Molden also faces charges in Fulton County for various violent crimes and gang-related offenses.

John Elijah Matthews faces a federal charge of committing an act of violence causing death on a mass transportation system, after he allegedly murdered a 66-year-old woman aboard a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) train last weekend.

Gwendolyn Brandon, a former supervisor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has pleaded guilty to theft of government funds in connection with fake invoices she submitted to the CDC.

Tracy Jones, a former Senior Vice President at the Atlanta Housing Authority, has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution for a scheme to fraudulently collect Section 8 housing assistance payments for her own rental property and family members, making fraudulent applications to collect pandemic relief funds, and committing mortgage fraud when refinancing her rental property. 

Orville Andrew Pernell, an illegal alien from Jamaica charged with murder in Saint Lucia, has been sentenced to federal prison for possession of a firearm by an alien illegally or unlawfully present in the United States.

Louis Brown, III, a former sergeant with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, has been arraigned on federal charges of using excessive force against a pretrial detainee at the Fulton County Courthouse.  

Kristin Draper has been arraigned on federal charges of money laundering conspiracy for allegedly conspiring with her boyfriend, Antwaun Brown, to funnel proceeds of Brown’s fentanyl dealing through a Dayton, Ohio group home for at-risk youth. Brown, a felon with state and federal convictions for trafficking crack cocaine and heroin, is facing federal drug charges related to the seizure of a massive amount of fentanyl in Sandy Springs, Georgia last year. 

Two illegal aliens and two convicted felons have been sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a large international drug trafficking and money laundering organization stretching from Mexico to Atlanta.  

An illegal alien who unlawfully possessed a firearm at a Fayette County gun range and her husband, who lied to an immigration judge in an effort to secure his wife’s release from custody and who paid another woman to fraudulently purchase firearms that others attempted to smuggle into Mexico, have pleaded guilty to multiple felony offenses and now face years in prison.

Owe Martin Andresen, the suspected main administrator of Dream Market, one of the largest illicit darknet marketplaces before its 2019 shutdown, has been indicted for an alleged scheme to launder funds from Dream Market’s administrator accounts. Andresen was arrested last week in Germany on parallel charges brought by the German government. 

Poul Thorsen, a Danish researcher who was one of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s top ten most wanted fugitives, was arraigned today on federal wire fraud and money laundering charges after his extradition from Germany.

Usoro E. McWhorter, who has eight prior felony convictions, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. His accomplice, Omari Nicks, was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison last year on the same charges.