Department of Justice

SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on October 31, 2019, Jhaquil Moore, age 24, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release, by United States District Court Judge Robert D. Mariani, for fentanyl trafficking.

According to United States Attorney David J. Freed, Moore was convicted of conspiring to distribute between 100 and 300 grams of a fentanyl mixed with acetyl fentanyl, which is equivalent to approximately 50,000 to 150,000 potentially lethal individual doses of fentanyl, in 2018.

Moore’s codefendants, Chyvonne Traver and Kayla Clark, both pleaded guilty to fentanyl trafficking and firearms offenses, and are awaiting sentencing.

The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and by the Luzerne Country Drug Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip J. Caraballo prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of a district wide initiative to combat the nationwide epidemic regarding the use and distribution of heroin. Led by the United States Attorney’s Office, the Heroin Initiative targets heroin traffickers operating in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and is part of a coordinated effort among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who commit heroin related offenses.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.

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