HOUSTON — A cocaine kingpin with a violent past will spend the rest of his life in prison after a federal jury in Houston convicted him of six counts related to a decade-long drug trafficking conspiracy from Houston to Atlanta, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
They found Ronald Brown, 50, guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, intentional killing related to drug trafficking, two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a murder, kidnapping and using a firearm in relation to the kidnapping as well as conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute cocaine.
“Stuffing a zip-tied man into a trunk, raining down gunfire during a car chase and hiring a murderer…all part of Ronald Brown’s illicit cocaine business,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said. “People like him destroy communities with the poison they sell and the violence they commit. Brown’s actions cut short someone’s life and put others in peril. And now, thanks to the hard work of federal prosecutors and law enforcement, the only thing in peril is Brown’s freedom.”
Brown, aka Nuk, Nook or Nookie, used 18-wheelers and car haulers to move as much as 200 kilos of cocaine a week from Houston to Atlanta, according to the feds.
In 2013, After one associate had 21 kilos seized by law enforcement, Brown and others kidnapped the man, Zip-tied his arms and legs and put him in the trunk of Brown’s girlfriend’s vehicle. A good Samaritan picked up the victim after he managed to free himself from the trunk. Brown chased that vehicle and opened fire on them, striking the good Samaritan in the upper body and the associate in the head. Both survived.
After the 2013 incident, Brown had another man killed because he also blamed him for the lost cocaine. He got details about that man's next meeting with his parole officer and hired a gunman to wait for him. The victim was shot multiple times at close range when he returned to his vehicle after the meeting. He died at the scene.
Brown paid the hired assassin and a middleman $20,000.
Brown will be formally sentenced to life in prison next January but will remain in federal custody until then.
The FBI conducted the investigation with assistance from the Houston Police Department’s Homicide Division, Texas Department of Criminal Justice – Parole Division, U.S. Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Prisons and Drug Enforcement Administration.
