BK Drug Dealer Gets 9 Years For Plotting To Murder Customer: Feds

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn drug dealer who plotted to murder a customer he thought was snitching to law enforcement will spend nine years in prison, prosecutors announced.

Leon Campbell, 41, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty earlier this year to trying to hire a gang member to murder the customer to in 2013, prosecutors said.

Campbell, who sold weed in Queens and Brooklyn, was busted by law enforcement agents who had tapped his phone before he and the gang member, Ronald Williams, could carry out the killing, prosecutors said.

“This murder-for-hire conspiracy reminds us of the extent drug traffickers will go to evade imprisonment,” said Ray Donovan, the Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent-in-Charge. “And, it underscores the violence associated with the drug trade that pervades throughout time."

Campbell first came up with the plan to kill his customer after he saw DEA agents following him while he was delivering marijuana in Brooklyn. He spotted the agents, fled, and assumed that the customer he had been delivering to was working as an federal informant, prosecutors said.

A few days later, Campbell, who also goes by "Country," called up Williams and offered to pay him $5,000 to kill the customer.

Williams agreed to commit the murder and chose a gang member to carry out the crime, prosecutors said.

At one point, Campbell even offered to kill the person himself, but Williams said it would be better to pay someone else to do it to "get it right," the prosecutors said.

Williams was convicted in January on murder-for-hire conspiracy charges and is waiting for his sentencing.

“This murder-for-hire conspiracy reminds us of the extent drug traffickers will go to evade imprisonment,” said DEA Special Agent-in-Charge Ray Donovan. “And, it underscores the violence associated with the drug trade that pervades throughout time."

Campbell pled guilty to the murder-for-hire conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute marijuana charges in June. Prosecutors said that Campbell, who is from Jamaica, will face deportation after he carries out his sentence.