Top-dog ‘hoodlum’ in Georgia crack-meth ring is prison bound for at least 125 years

Known as “Shug” and “Big Homie” in and around Fifth Street on the south side of Milledgeville where he hung out, Delma Goddard had in recent years become a big name, one of the leading peddlers of crack cocaine and meth in the area.

“Quite frankly,” Baldwin County sheriff’s Capt. Brad King said, “he was a hoodlum. That pretty much sums him up. ... A career criminal.”

But that career ended last May after the feds swooped in amid a spate of gang-related shootings that stretched back to the summer of 2015.

Goddard, 38, a member of the local Nine-Deuce gang, which has ties to the Bloods gang, soon became one of more than a dozen targets in a probe that has since netted more than a dozen convictions.

Goddard has been in and out of state prison three times in the past decade and a half. His past transgressions were for drug-selling, gun possession and other crimes.

Now he is going back behind bars — this time as a federal inmate — and he is never getting out.

Jurors in U.S. District Court here on Monday found Goddard guilty in a drug-trafficking case that involved a string of drug and gun charges, among them, conspiracy to possess and distribute more than 280 grams of crack, 50-plus grams of meth and more than 100 grams of heroin.

Goddard will be sentenced later, but his conviction comes with a minimum mandatory prison term of 125 years without parole.

His arrest last year outside the mall in Milledgeville came at the end of a months-long investigation that involved the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Goddard, the authorities said, unwittingly sold drugs to undercover agents.

When he was arrested, he was carrying 9 ounces of heroin, which King, the sheriff’s captain, said was an “unbelievably significant” amount for Baldwin County.

This story was originally published July 31, 2018 at 4:34 PM.