MOBILE, AL – A federal jury convicted a Mobile man last week for drug conspiracy, possessing bulk marijuana with intent to distribute it, possessing an illegally modified machinegun in furtherance of drug-trafficking crimes, illegally possessing firearms as an eight-time convicted felon, and illegally possessing an unregistered machinegun.
According to court documents and evidence presented at a three-day trial, Hassan D. Jones, 25, conspired with several individuals to distribute bulk marijuana in the Mobile area and elsewhere from at least March 2021 through February 2023. In May 2021, deputy sheriffs in Louisiana arrested Jones and two of his coconspirators following a traffic stop of a car they were using to return to Mobile from a drug pickup in Houston, Texas. In the car, police found a loaded Glock pistol equipped with an extended magazine, marijuana, promethazine syrup, and more than $5,000 in cash.
In February 2023, narcotics detectives with the Mobile Police Department executed a search warrant at Jones’s apartment in Eight Mile. During the search, detectives seized, among other things, four pounds of vacuum-sealed bulk marijuana, two loaded Glock pistols equipped with extended magazines, and two of Jones’s cell phones. One of the pistols was equipped with a machinegun-conversion device, commonly known as a “Glock switch,” which illegally converted the semiautomatic pistol into a fully automatic machinegun. The jury also heard from a DNA expert who located Jones’s DNA on the Glock pistols seized from his apartment. Jones’s phones and social media accounts contained dozens of videos, photos, and messages regarding Jones’s drug dealing and his illegal possession of firearms, including illegally-modified machineguns.
Jones will be sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock in March 2024. Jones is subject to a mandatory 30-year prison sentence for possessing a machinegun in furtherance of his drug-trafficking crimes. That 30-year sentence must run consecutively to any other sentence he receives. Jones faces up to 15 years in prison for being a felon in possession of firearms, up to 10 years in prison for illegally possessing an unregistered machinegun, and up to five years in prison for each of his drug convictions.
U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello of the Southern District of Alabama made the announcement.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Mobile Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana Sheriff’s Office are investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin Roller and Jessica Terrill are prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.