Convicted Macon cocaine kingpin Jerry Jerome Anderson could be home for Christmas
The man who was once recognized as Middle Georgia's "king of cocaine" may be home for Christmas. Or sooner.
Jerry Jerome Anderson, 60, who was sent to prison for life without parole in 1991, had his sentence commuted by President Barack Obama earlier this year. He was expected to be freed in 2020.
But at a hearing on Tuesday in Albany — one that Anderson's lawyers had sought to have Anderson's sentence trimmed, long before the commutation came — a federal judge reduced Anderson's prison term to 360 months.
With "good time" served factored in, a computation that is handled by the Bureau of Prisons, Anderson is expected to be released in the coming days, one of his lawyers, Ashley Deadwyler-Heuman, said Wednesday.
"We expect him to be home within a week," she said.
Anderson, who is behind bars at a federal prison in Jesup, ran a cocaine-dealing operation that pumped nearly a quarter-ton of the drug into Macon during the late 1980s.
His conviction in 1991 led to him being the first person in the region sentenced to life without parole under federal guidelines.
The Telegraph at the time reported that Anderson’s organization sold an average $30,000 worth of cocaine a night, and sometimes as much as $85,000 a night.
Earlier this year, The Telegraph reported that Anderson's crew "had an annual payroll of about $500,000 for 25 to 30 member who also received Christmas bonuses," and that customers were offered buy-one, get-one-free discounts at Christmas.
In court on Tuesday, in a tearful, heartfelt plea for her father, Anderson's daughter, Kimberly Braswell, who was 7 when Anderson went to prison, spoke of crying every Christmas Eve because her father was in prison.
"Our goal is that she doesn't have to cry this Christmas Eve," Deadwyler-Heuman told The Telegraph.
Deadwyler-Heuman said Anderson, who did not attend Tuesday's hearing, was "through the moon" when he learned of the sentence reduction.
"Y'all get your dancing shoes ready," Anderson told his lawyers by phone, "because we're gonna celebrate when I get home."
Anderson, in a statement that one of his attorneys read in court Tuesday, wrote:
"I know that my crimes were devastating to my community, family and self. And I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to any and everyone that my decisions have affected. If my sentence is reduced, I am determined to correct my wrongdoings. By committing myself to entering into the school system and any other program that deals with youthful offenders and at-risk minors. ... Thank you very much, Jerry Anderson."
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published December 13, 2017 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Convicted Macon cocaine kingpin Jerry Jerome Anderson could be home for Christmas."