A Jersey City man received a 16-year prison sentence for running a fentanyl manufacturing facility out of a local hotel room, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger announced.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Jabar Evans, 45, of Jersey City, was convicted on October 20th, 2023, of unlawful possession of a firearm, possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, Sellinger said in a statement.
In June 2021, Evans controlled a fentanyl manufacturing facility in a Jersey City hotel room. In the early morning hours of June 22nd, 2021, Evans moved his drug manufacturing facility from one hotel room into a new, larger room within the hotel.
Surveillance video showed Evans’s belongings being moved from his old room to his new room in the middle of the night.
After several hours of moving the drug operation, Evans inadvertently left two firearms in the safe of the old room, which hotel staff thereafter discovered and turned over to law enforcement.
Law enforcement officers arrested Evans in his new room, where they also found – both in plain view and hidden in duffel bags in the ceiling – over 12,000 glassines of fentanyl, bags containing hundreds of grams of uncut fentanyl and methamphetamine, and narcotics packaging and manufacturing equipment.
Sellinger credited the Jersey City Police Department, under the direction of Public Safety Director James Shea, with the investigation leading to the sentencing.
He also thanked special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy in Newark.
This investigation was conducted as part of the Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI).
The VCI was formed in 2018 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Jersey City Police Department, for the sole purpose of combatting violent crime in and around Jersey City.
