MOBILE, AL –Three members of Darrin Southall’s drug trafficking organization have been sentenced in federal court. Two of them will serve 10 years in federal prison and one of them will serve 5 years in federal prison.
According to court documents, Southall ran a continuing criminal enterprise involving the distribution of massive amounts of controlled substances in the Mobile, Alabama, area, and the laundering of drug proceeds through bank accounts and nominees. Sentenced on April 28 were Eric Alonzo Windham, also known as “Dumbo,” 49, of Prichard, Alabama; Terrance Santez Malik Watkins, also known as “YSD Capp,” 25, of Mobile; and Willie Demarcus Oliver, also known as “Ill Will,” 31 of Mobile. Watkins and Oliver entered guilty pleas to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine during September of 2021, and Windham entered a guilty plea to the same charge in October of 2021. Court documents identified Oliver as a street dealer, implicated when he sold cocaine to an undercover informant. Watkins was identified as a large-scale dealer who supplied Oliver and others with cocaine for distribution and who acted as an enforcer for Southall. Windham was identified as a courier working for Southall, who drove drug money to Texas to pay for loads of cocaine and returned to Mobile with cocaine. According to evidence adduced at Windham’s sentencing hearing, his residence on Myrtlewood Boulevard in Prichard facilitated the drug distribution activity as a stash house and a location where kilograms from the cocaine loads were distributed to others.
United States District Court Judge Kristi DuBose imposed a sentence of 10 years in Watkins and Windham’s cases. The judge imposed a sentence of 5 years in Oliver’s case. The judge further ordered that each defendant would also serve five years on supervised release following their imprisonment. As conditions of their supervision, each defendant will also undergo testing and treatment for drug and/or alcohol abuse, and they will be subject to a search of their persons and premises upon reasonable suspicion. No fine was imposed but the judge ordered that each defendant pay $100 in special assessments. Each defendant’s interest in a long list of seized property was ordered forfeited to the United States.
The case was investigated by the Mobile Police Department, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the Saraland Police Department, the St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Office, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gloria Bedwell prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.