A woman charged federally in a 2017 heroin trafficking case took a plea Monday in New Bern.
Her co-defendant was sentenced to 60 months of federal time last summer, according to documents in the court record.
On Monday, Tara Finis Simmons appeared before Magistrate Judge Robert B. Jones Jr. and entered a guilty plea to counts 1 and 2 lodged against her. A third count is expected to be dismissed at her sentencing in August before District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan, documents show.
Simmons and Charles Wright, who was sentenced in the summer, and are from Columbus County, had a federal detainer placed on them after they were stopped in Scotland Neck the evening of August 16 of 2017. The stop led to the seizure of 102 bricks of heroin.
In superseding indictments, however, the cases of Wright and Simmons were linked to the heroin trafficking cases of Tony Ray Reams and Herbert Lamont Cherry, which showed a heroin trafficking pipeline extending from Paterson, New Jersey, to Scotland Neck.
Reams was sentenced to 47 months in prison and five years of supervised release in early February, according to documents filed in the federal court record.
Cherry was sentenced late last year to 71 months in prison and five years of supervised release, documents show.
It was Reams, however, who, according to court documents, made several statements regarding the names of other people within an operation working out of Scotland Neck.
Reams identified Simmons, who goes by the street name T-baby, as reputedly being the organization’s usual courier.
In the Wright-Simmons case there have been two superseding indictments issued which name others in that case.
The second superseding indictment named Terrence “Tee” Cornelius Clyburn and Tyshawn “Ty” Rayvon Reams as defendants.
The third superseding indictment named Patrick “JuJu” Holiday and Mario “Rio” Marelle Scott as defendants in the case.
Clyburn and Holiday are scheduled for sentencing on June 20 in New Bern before Flanagan.
Ty Reams is now scheduled for sentencing in August in New Bern and Scott is scheduled for arraignment on May 14 in New Bern before Jones.
