Southern District of Illinois

Bryan L. Cayce, 45, of O’Fallon, Missouri, appeared for arraignment today in United States District Court in Benton on charges that he illegally distributed heroin, announced Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The indictment charging Cayce was returned by a Federal Grand Jury on November 6, 2012, and alleged that the distribution occurred on September 18, 2012, in Saline County.

An indictment is a formal charge against a defendant. Under the law, a defendant is presumed to be innocent of a charge until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a jury.

If convicted, Cayce faces up to 20 years imprisonment, a $1 million fine, and a term of 3 years to life on supervised release to follow his incarceration.

Cayce will next appear in United States District Court in Benton on Friday, January 4th at 11:30 a.m. for a hearing on a motion that he be held without bond. Cayce was remanded to the custody of the United States Marshal to await that hearing.

The case was investigated by the Carmi office of the Southern Illinois Drug Task Force.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James M. Cutchin.

Oscar Naun Torres-Hernandez, 22, a citizen of Honduras, pled guilty today in United States District Court in Benton to charges that he was illegally present in the United States after having been previously removed by immigration officials, announced Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The indictment charging Torres-Hernandez was returned by a Federal Grand Jury on November 6, 2012, after he was taken into custody by an Illinois State Police trooper on October 15th at the direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents following a routine traffic stop on Interstate 57 in Effingham County during which the trooper learned that Torres-Hernandez was an illegal alien.

Sentencing was set for April 25, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. at the United States District Courthouse in Benton. Torres-Hernandez faces up to 2 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and 3 years of supervised release.

Torres-Hernandez has been held in federal custody since his arrest on October 15th and was returned to the custody of the United States Marshal to await sentencing.

The case was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Illinois State Police.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James M. Cutchin.

Paul E. Reynolds, 36, of Ridgeway, Illinois, pled guilty today in United States District Court in Benton to an indictment charging him with one count of conspiring with two other individuals to grow more than 100 marijuana plants and one count of actually growing more than 100 marijuana plants, announced Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The indictment, returned by a Federal Grand Jury on September 5, 2012, alleged that the offenses occurred in Gallatin County between April, 2012 and August 29, 2012.

Sentencing was set for April 25, 2013, at the United States District Court in Benton. Reynolds faces between 5 and 40 years imprisonment, up to a $5 million fine, and 4 years to life on supervised release to follow incarceration on each count.

Reynolds’ codefendant, Daniel J. Fulkerson, 39, also from Ridgeway, pled guilty to the same charges last month. His sentencing was set for April 11, 2013.

Reynolds has been held without bond on the federal charges since September 11, 2012, and was again remanded to the custody of the United States Marshal to await sentencing.

The case was investigated by the Carmi office of the Southern Illinois Drug Task Force.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James M. Cutchin.

Michael D. McCullough, 58, of Fairfield, Illinois, was sentenced today in United States District Court in Benton to a term of imprisonment of 12 months and 1 day following his previous guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, announced Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The indictment charging McCullough with possessing two firearms, a Smith & Wesson .357 caliber revolver and a Freedom Arms .22 caliber revolver, was returned by a Federal Grand Jury on May 8, 2012. It further alleged that the offense occurred on August 28, 2011, and that prior to that date McCullough had been convicted of two felonies in Wayne County Circuit Court. McCullough pled guilty to the indictment on October 4, 2012.

Evidence introduced to support the guilty plea and sentence showed that the firearms were found after a fire broke out in McCullough’s unoccupied residence in Fairfield on August 28, 2011. Police were notified by fire fighters that upon entering the residence to fight the fire, they located 5 marijuana plants growing in an indoor grow operation in McCullough’s bathroom. The Fairfield Police Department secured a search warrant for McCullough’s residence through the Wayne County State’s Attorney’s office and thereafter located and seized the marijuana plants along with the two firearms and several rounds of ammunition from McCullough’s bedroom.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, McCullough was ordered to pay a $1000 fine and $100 special assessment to the United States and was placed on a 2 year term of supervised release to follow his incarceration.

The case was investigated by the Carmi office of the Southern Illinois Drug Task Force and the Fairfield Police Department, with the assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James M. Cutchin.

A Granite City, Illinois, man was sentenced in federal court to serve 20 years in prison (the maximum statutory sentence) after pleading guilty to the crime of Solicitation of a Crime of Violence on December 4, 2012, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today.

“This was a harsh, but fair and deserved sentence for what could only be described as a crime involving bizarre circumstances and extreme violence,” said United States Attorney Wigginton.

In addition to the 20 years in prison, Brett Nash, 46, was sentenced to three years of supervised release following imprisonment, a $500 fine, and a $100 special assessment. There is no parole in the federal system. Nash had been charged with soliciting his wife to abduct, seize, and confine a person, and to hold that person in order to obtain money from him.

Previous court proceedings revealed that the charge arose from incidents occurring in late 2011 and January, 2012, in which Nash sought the help of his wife, TN, and another person in abducting a Granite City lawyer and obtaining money from him. A Factual Stipulation filed with the Court explained the scheme in great detail.

At the sentencing hearing today, Nash argued that he did not have the intent to murder. In response, the prosecution played several recorded conversations between Nash and TN, and between Nash and the CW, leading the judge to conclude that the intention to murder the victim was clear. The judge cited the earnestness with which Nash explained his plans for the victim to the CW as the reason for finding that Nash had the intention to murder the victim.

The recordings indicated that Nash wanted his wife to lure the victim from his home, whereupon Nash and the CW would seize the victim and take him back to his house. There, they would rig him with a fake explosive device; then Nash planned to take the victim to his bank, and force him to withdraw all his money under the threat that Nash would detonate the explosive if the victim did not cooperate.

The recordings indicated that Nash’s initial plan was to electrocute the victim by putting the victim in a hot tub and electrocuting him by throwing in a radio. He would then throw in a cat and electrocute the cat to make it look like the cat had accidentally knocked the radio into the hot tub. However, one of the recordings indicated that on the day Nash was arrested, he told the CW that he wanted two guns for the robbery. He told the CW that it didn’t make any difference what caliber the gun was because the victim was going “to commit suicide,” implying that he and the CW would shoot the victim and make it look like a suicide. “Dead men don’t talk,” said Nash in one of the recordings.

The case was investigated by members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Illinois State Police, the Granite City Police Department, the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois, and the Madison County Sheriff's Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen B. Clark.

On December 3, 2013, Otto W. Jean, a fifty-nine year old Fairview Heights, Illinois, man pled guilty in federal district court, in East St. Louis, to failure to register as a sex offender, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Jean is scheduled for sentencing on April 7, 2014. He faces a term in prison of up to ten (10) years, a fine up to $250,000, or both, and a term of supervised release of five (5) years to life, and a mandatory special assessment of $100.

The violation occurred between November 2011 and June 2013. Jean was required to register as a sex offender under both Illinois law and the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act because he was convicted of Statutory Sodomy in the 2nd Degree on March 1, 2000, in St. Louis, Missouri. In November 2011, Jean moved from Missouri to Fairview Heights, Illinois. He was aware of his requirements to register as a sex offender in the State of Illinois and to update his registration with the State of Missouri, upon his move to Illinois in November 2011. Jean was contacted by the Fairview Heights Police Department on June 6, 2013, for non-compliance. He admitted to not having registered in Illinois.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”

The case was investigated by the United States Marshals Service and the Fairview Heights Police Department. Daniel T. Kapsak, Assistant United States Attorney prosecuted the case.

An East St. Louis man, Chris L. Hibbler, 44, was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment today in United States District Court, East St. Louis, for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm by a Previously Convicted Felon, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Hibbler was also ordered to pay a $250 fine and a $100 special assessment and to serve a term of 3 years of supervised release following imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. Hibbler has been in custody since his arrest on July 17, 2012.

Court documents establish that on February 17, 2012, East St. Louis Police Officers were dispatched at approximately 1:40 a.m. to the 100th block of 5th Street in reference to a male armed with a shotgun. When the officers arrived, they encountered Chris L. Hibbler, who was armed with a Winchester, Model 37, 20-gauge sawed off shotgun. Hibbler agreed to an interview with law enforcement and admitted to possessing the firearm. Hibbler claimed that he found a bag on the ground near the Metro Link station which contained the sawed off shotgun and a round of ammunition. Hibbler stated that he intended to take the firearm to the south end of the city to shoot it. Court documents further establish that prior to February 17, 2012, Hibbler had been convicted of a felony.

The investigation was conducted by the East St. Louis Police Department and the WAVE Task Force. The WAVE Task Force focuses its efforts on combating violent crime in East St. Louis, Washington Park, and surrounding communities. WAVE was formed in November, 2009, and is a collaboration of law enforcement officers from the Illinois State Police, the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois (MEGSI), the East St. Louis Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The WAVE Task Force receives financial support through the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) initiative, a nationwide federal program which endeavors to address gun-related violence.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ali Summers.

Dartayous R. Moore, 34, from Cahokia, IL, was sentenced on March 25, 2013, in District Court in East St. Louis, IL, on one count of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm by a Previously Convicted Felon, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today.

Moore was sentenced to 57 months in prison, one year of supervised release, fined $300 and ordered to pay $100 special assessment. Moore, who previously pled guilty, admitted that a firearm recovered during a law enforcement response to a disturbance at a residence in Washington Park, IL, on August 13, 2012, belonged to him. He forfeited the firearm. Moore admitted that he had possessed the gun, knowing that he was a convicted felon and knowing that it was illegal for him to have a gun.

The investigation was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Matthew H. Brooks.