TOMS RIVER -- A Lakewood drug dealer currently on the lam after he was mistakenly being released from prison in July faces a life sentence after being convicted Wednesday of leading a narcotics network, authorities said Thursday.
Daryel Rawls
Daryel Rawls, 36, was found guilty of multiple drug charges including being the leader of a narcotics trafficking network that pushed large quantities of heroin and cocaine, said Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato.
The trial was held without Rawls being present.
He said Rawls, who also goes by the name Derryl Rawls, was charged in distribution case while he was serving a six-year sentence in state prison for his conviction in Operation Low Down, a drug bust of 21 people in Monmouth County in 2009.
But court and state Department of Corrections records show Rawls was released from prison on July 13 rather than being kept behind bars on a $500,000 detainer.
The charges in 2010 against Rawls were as part of Operation Baked Zito, an undercover investigation that netted 13 people, several of whom had conversations about managing and organizing the distribution ring captured on a wiretap, the prosecutor said.
Coronato said investigators intercepted thousands of drug-related conversations.
Several of those charged in the case were called to testify during the trial, which was presided over by Superior Court Judge Rochelle Gizinski.
The case took years to get to court because of legal arguments in the case of a co-defendant Tern Savoy over whether prosecutors could use the conversations he had with this wife, Yolanda Terry, in Savoy's case, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor's office.
The case went to the state Supreme Court and the prosecutor's office was eventually allowed to use those conversations against Savoy and then Rawls, Della Fave said.
When he was arrested on October 17, 2010, Rawls was found to have more than 20 bricks - the equivalent of 1,000 bags - of heroin and 26 grams of powder cocaine.
Also testifying against Rawls were prosecutor's detectives Ken Hess, Casey Long, and James Kingston; Joanne Maffei of the Ocean County Sherriff's Department, CIU; DetectiveThomas Kulpinski of the New Jersey State Police Electronic Surveillance Unit; and State Police Trooper Jeffrey Greco, Coronato said.
Coronato said his office is working closely with the US Marshal's Service to arrest Rawls. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call the prosecutor's office at 732 929-2027.
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