PHILADELPHIA. – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that Dewayne Quinones, 30, and Mayco Alvarez-Jackson, 27, both of Reading, Pennsylvania, were sentenced by United States District Court Judge Juan R. Sánchez to life in prison for murder, kidnapping, drug distribution, and firearms offenses, crimes committed as members of a violent Reading-area drug trafficking organization (DTO).
The Trinidad DTO was responsible for multiple homicides, kidnapping, and conspiracies to kidnap in 2017 and 2018, including a quadruple homicide on January 28, 2018. In October 2022, Quinones, Alvarez-Jackson, and DTO leader Jesus Feliciano-Trinidad were convicted at trial of federal murder and weapons charges relating to the quadruple homicide, with Feliciano-Trinidad sentenced to life in prison last December.
More than 15 defendants were charged in a series of indictments resulting from a years-long investigation into the Trinidad DTO’s receipt, processing, and distribution of methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, and crack cocaine.
The indictments detailed the defendants using a number of buildings, residences, firearms, and acts of violence to further their drug dealing efforts in and around Reading, including kidnapping and/or shooting multiple individuals in 2017 and 2018; conspiring to shoot and kill Miguel Reyes on December 13, 2017; kidnapping, shooting, and killing Hector Gonzalez-Rivera on January 24, 2018; and shooting and killing Jarlyn Lantigua-Tejada, Juan Rodriguez, Nelson Onofre, and Joshua Santos on January 28, 2018.
“The Trinidad organization thoroughly terrorized the Reading area for years,” said U.S. Attorney Romero. “Through remorseless violence they controlled their turf, to keep pushing their poison and making their money. As this case shows, my office, the FBI, and our local law enforcement partners will never cede control of our communities to violent drug gangs. We’ll continue to work on the public’s behalf to lock up these dangerous offenders who shatter folks’ sense of security and quality of life.”
“The life sentences imposed by the Federal District Court after the successful prosecution of this violent Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) by the U.S. Attorney’s Office ensure that these defendants will never again be a threat to our community,” said Berks County District Attorney John Adams. “These sentences should send a message that we will not tolerate violence or drug trafficking and we’ll work with our state and federal partners to combat this type of activity in our community. We appreciate our partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the prosecution of this violent DTO.”
The case was investigated by FBI Philadelphia’s Allentown Resident Agency, the Berks County District Attorney’s Office, the Berks County Detectives, and the Reading Police Department, with assistance from the Pennsylvania State Police and the Montgomery County Detectives, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kelly A. Lewis Fallenstein, Assistant United States Attorney Rosalynda M. Michetti, and Assistant United States Attorney Vineet Gauri.
