Dubuque Woman Sentenced for Participating in Cocaine Trafficking

A woman who was involved in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, in which a young woman died from using cocaine distributed by the conspirators, was sentenced on August 15, 2024, to more than nine years in federal prison.

Whitaker Jo Ingles, age 30, from Dyersville, Iowa, received the prison term after a March 14, 2024 guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine between 2019 and February 17, 2021, near Madison Park in Dubuque, Iowa.

At the guilty plea and sentencing, Ingles admitted she was a member of a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in the Dubuque area.  She helped get the cocaine from the individual who brought it from Chicago, and then worked with others to distribute the cocaine to customers in Dubuque.  On February 14, 2021, one of her partners distributed cocaine to a young woman in Dubuque who went home, used the cocaine and died from using the cocaine.

Ingles was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.  Ingles was sentenced to 115 months’ imprisonment.  She was ordered to make $13,911.02 in restitution to the victim’s family.  She must also serve an eight-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Ingles is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until she can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Patrick J. Reinert and Nicole Nagin and was investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program of the United States Department

of Justice through a cooperative effort of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Iowa Medical Examiner’s Office and the Dubuque Drug Task Force, comprised of Dubuque Police Department, Dubuque Sheriff’s Office.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 24-CR-01006.

Follow us on Twitter @USAO_NDIA.