‘I didn’t know it was illegal,’ cocaine kingpin says of making first sales

Growing up poor in Macon’s Tindall Heights housing project, Jerry Jerome Anderson watched his single mother fight to raise him and his seven siblings on the paycheck she earned as a hospital cook.

When an emergency expense had to be paid — such as a doctor bill — the children went hungry, only eating subsidized lunches at school.

As an adult, he attended community college in Tennessee for a few months, but returned to Macon to help the mother of his three children.

Trying to find a job, he applied to the fire and police departments and the military without success.

Introduced to men from Florida, he watched as the men sold small bags of white powder.

“I didn’t know it was illegal,” Anderson wrote in a 2016 statement attached to a motion filed by his lawyers seeking to have his sentence reduced.

Just days before leaving office, President Barack Obama commuted Anderson’s sentence — the first life without parole sentence issued in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — and set his release for Jan. 17, 2020.

Dubbed by federal prosecutor “the king of cocaine,” Anderson ruled a 30-member drug dealing organization that sold more than 208 kilograms of cocaine — nearly 460 pounds — in Macon between 1986 and 1989.

In his statement, Anderson said he learned after his first night selling cocaine that he risked going to jail if caught by police.

“All I could see back then was how much money I had made and how I could help my mother out and take care of my kids,” he wrote. “That’s why I started selling drugs.”

Using the money he got from selling drugs, Anderson bought a car for his mother and had her house repaired. He bought clothes, food and Christmas presents for his children and a home for their mother, according to the motion.

Anderson also bought uniforms and sporting equipment, putting up basketball hoop for children living in Tindall Heights, according to the motion.

While in prison, Anderson has dedicated himself to rehabilitation and self-improvement, earning his G.E.D. and completing other education courses, according to the motion. If the motion is granted, Anderson could be released from prison before 2020.

He’s spent time using his story to convince younger inmates “not to spend their lives in and out of prison,” according to the motion.

After his release from prison, Anderson wants to mentor children and gang members, telling them “selling drugs isn’t the life they think it is,” Anderson wrote.

“Talking to young kids is what I want to do,” he wrote.

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 2:54 PM with the headline "‘I didn’t know it was illegal,’ cocaine kingpin says of making first sales."