Kind words can’t save area drug dealer from prison return

Vernon Jackson, who once laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars in heroin money through two Station Square nightclubs, is headed back to federal prison for drug dealing.

U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti on Wednesday imposed a term of 16 months and six years of probation on a cocaine distribution conviction.

Jackson, 50, pleaded guilty in March following a raid on his Dormont house in 2018 that turned up 95 grams of cocaine in a food container.

When the investigation began, Jackson was out on probation after receiving a major break in his original case. His term, imposed in 2006, was cut from 15 years to 151 months because of changes in sentencing rules for drug dealers.

Prosecutors said he went right back to drug dealing.

But in court, his sister and his pastor portrayed him as a role model for children and an asset to the community who wants to live a clean life.

Jackson apologized for what he’d done and told the judge he grew up in poverty in the projects of Brooklyn, N.Y. He saw his first murder at age 11 and fell into the drug life because that’s all he knew.

But he said he’s a changed man now, having found religion, working in construction and dedicating himself to living the rest of his life as an honest family man.

“I’m 50,” he said. “This is my new life. Is it too late for me?”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Lanni expressed doubt as to how much Jackson has really changed.

In addition to the current drug case, he said Jackson has repeatedly violated his probation by not living where he was supposed to and associating with a criminal from his old case.

He said Jackson has been a criminal for his entire life and is likely to continue on that path. The only reason he insists that he’s changed now, Mr. Lanni said, is because he got caught again.

“It’s a repeated course of criminal conduct,” he said.

Jackson, however, said that he’s done with the drug life.

“I can’t keep doing the same thing,” he said.

If he gets charged again, the judge noted, he’ll go back to federal prison for 15 years. He also faces possible further penalty for violating his probation; that case is pending before another federal judge.

Pittsburgh police started investigating Jackson in

February 2018.

The following month, the SWAT team raided his house. In addition to the cocaine, they found digital scales and other material indicating Jackson was selling drugs, just as he did in the old days, although nowhere near the same volume.

In the early 2000s, Jackson was at the center of a massive heroin ring that called itself the “CREAM Team,” short for “Cash Rules Everything Around Me,” a Wu-Tang Clan rap lyric and song title.

A rap music producer at the time, Jackson dealt heroin, supplied from New Jersey and New York City, throughout the region. He laundered the money from drug sales through Chauncy’s, then a popular night spot in Station Square. He did the same through another club, called Rock Jungle, in the same complex.

The U.S. attorney’s office said he managed the clubs and used them both as fronts for the drug operation. Jackson and the CREAM Team still ranks as one of the largest drug rings ever prosecuted in the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Jackson got out of prison in October 2015 after serving about 12 years.