Marrero Men Sentenced After Pleading Guilty To Cocaine Conspiracy

 NEW ORLEANS –U.S. Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced that U.S. District Mary Ann Vial Lemmon sentenced GARLAND GULLORY (GUILLORY), age 41, and PHILLIP HELTON (P. HELTON), age 41, both of Marrero, Louisiana, to 188 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release and a $100 special assessment, respectively, after both plead guilty to a one-count superseding bill of information charging them with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five hundred grams or more of cocaine hydrochloride and twenty-eight grams or more of cocaine base (“crack”). 

According to court documents, in 2016, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) New Orleans identified GUILLORY and P. HELTON’S brother Derris (D. Helton) as cocaine traffickers in the New Orleans area.  Using a confidential source, agents made three controlled purchases of crack from GUILLORY and D. Helton totaling more than one hundred fifty grams.  Through telephone wiretaps, agents identified their co-conspirators, P. HELTON, Robert Gaines, and Exavier Gardner.  During a monitored telephone call in July 2017, the Helton brothers discussed having Gaines supply an individual with a quantity of drugs.

On August 1, 2017, agents learned through monitored telephone calls between the Helton brothers that D. Helton was travelling from Houston, Texas to New Orleans via Greyhound bus with a large quantity of cocaine.  DEA agents and Louisiana State Police troopers stationed themselves at the Greyhound terminal in New Orleans awaiting D. Helton’s arrival.  When D. Helton arrived at the terminal and exited the bus, agents and troopers approached D. Helton.  After D. Helton consented to a search of his bag, agents found approximately 500 grams of cocaine hydrochloride in his bag.  A subsequent monitored telephone call revealed a distraught P. HELTON lamenting his brother’s arrest while acknowledging that he (P. HELTON) should have been the one arrested with the drugs.

U.S. Attorney Strasser praised the work of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and the Louisiana State Police in investigating this matter.  Assistant United States Attorney André Jones in was charge of the prosecution