Jersey City Man Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison for Narcotics and Firearms Offenses

NEWARK, N.J. – A Hudson County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 192 months in prison for drug distribution and weapons offenses, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

Jabar Evans, 45, of Jersey City, New Jersey, was convicted on Oct. 20, 2023, of unlawful possession of a firearm, possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

According to documents filed in this case and the evidence at trial:

In June 2021, Evans controlled a fentanyl manufacturing facility in a Jersey City hotel room. In the early morning hours of June 22, 2021, Evans moved his drug manufacturing facility from one hotel room into a new, larger room within the hotel. Surveillance video showed Evans’s belongings being moved from his old room to his new room in the middle of the night. After several hours of moving the drug operation, Evans inadvertently left two firearms in the safe of the old room, which hotel staff thereafter discovered and turned over to law enforcement. Law enforcement officers arrested Evans in his new room, where they also found – both in plain view and hidden in duffel bags in the ceiling – over 12,000 glassines of fentanyl, bags containing hundreds of grams of uncut fentanyl and methamphetamine, and narcotics packaging and manufacturing equipment.

U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited the Jersey City Police Department, under the direction of Public Safety Director James Shea, with the investigation leading to the sentencing. He also thanked special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy in Newark.

This investigation was conducted as part of the Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI). The VCI was formed in 2018 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Jersey City Police Department, for the sole purpose of combatting violent crime in and around Jersey City. As part of this partnership, federal, state, county, and city agencies collaborate to strategize and prioritize the prosecution of violent offenders who endanger the safety of the community. The VCI is composed of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division, the U.S. Marshals, the Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations, the Jersey City Police Department, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, New Jersey State Parole, the Hudson County Jail, and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center/Real Time Crime Center.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace, Chief of the Criminal Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Goldberg of the Office’s Organized Crime and Gangs Unit in Newark.