United States of America v. Glennie Antonio McGee and Echandza Dianca Maxie

Mobile, Alabama, criminal defense lawyers represented the Defendants charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft.

Reported by Kent Morlan

Glennie Antonio McGee, 42, Echandza Dianca Maxie, 43, and several coconspirators were members of a lucrative, Mobile-based DTO that distributed hundreds of pounds of cocaine and tens of thousands of fentanyl pills between 2017 and 2024. The DTO sourced cocaine from cartel-connected suppliers in Texas and, ultimately, Mexico. The DTO’s fentanyl pills—counterfeited “M30” pills pressed to look like oxycodone—came from various sources in Alabama, Florida, Washington, and other locales.

The evidence against McGee and Maxie included numerous court-authorized wiretap recordings, CCTV videos from a covert camera installed in McGee’s Cadillac Escalade, pole camera and aerial surveillance videos, text messages and other phone data, financial records, tax records, and DNA evidence, among other things. The jury heard evidence that the defendants used their illicit proceeds to travel the world, including trips to exotic locations including France, Greece, the Maldives, Mexico, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.

In December 2022, Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) agents arrested one of McGee’s cocaine suppliers following a dangerous high-speed chase in midtown Mobile. Agents seized 9.5 kilograms of cartel-sourced cocaine from the supplier, who was scheduled to deliver one kilogram of the cocaine to McGee that same evening. Weeks later, FBI agents executed a search warrant at McGee’s and Maxie’s house in west Mobile. Agents seized a backpack containing cocaine residue from a vehicle that Maxie was driving. They also seized bulk cash, custom jewelry and other proceeds of the defendants’ drug crimes, a money-counting machine, drug ledgers, documents linking the defendants to other members of the DTO, and a Draco AK-47-style pistol from the house. Maxie lied to FBI agents and claimed the pistol belonged to her, but an FBI DNA analyst found McGee’s DNA on the weapon and other evidence showed that one of McGee’s drug couriers had illegally bought the weapon for him because he is a convicted felon who is prohibited from possessing guns. McGee’s prior felonies include state convictions for shooting into occupied buildings and vehicles, as well as a federal conviction for trafficking crack cocaine. While agents were still on-scene searching the house, Maxie left the residence and traveled to multiple bank branches in Mobile and withdrew $138,000. Agents also found a ledger in the house linking Maxie and McGee to numerous fraudulent tax returns falsely claiming millions of dollars’ worth of COVID-19 relief benefits.

In January and February 2024, Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) agents obtained multiple recordings of McGee discussing his DTO’s procurement and distribution of hundreds of pounds of cocaine and thousands of fentanyl pills. In those recordings, McGee explained how he took his drug profits and laundered them through real estate properties that he and Maxie had acquired, including properties they rented out on Airbnb. On February 17, 2024, agents recorded McGee selling 1,018 fentanyl pills to a cooperating defendant.

In March 2024, HSI agents began a court-authorized wiretap of several cell phones used by McGee. Agents intercepted more than 8,000 calls during three months’ worth of monitoring. At trial, the jury reviewed more than 100 recorded calls and videos from the covert CCTV camera installed in McGee’s Escalade. On those calls and videos, agents captured McGee making dozens of drug deals for bulk cocaine and fentanyl pills. Agents also intercepted Maxie brokering a drug deal on McGee’s behalf. In one instance on March 18, 2024, McGee sold a kilogram of cocaine to a customer for $18,000 in the driveway of his mother’s house on Euclid Avenue in Mobile. A pole camera captured a 15-year-old child hand delivering the brick of cocaine to McGee.

On March 30, 2024, agents arrested one of McGee’s drug couriers, Tierra Tocorra Hill, in possession of a kilogram of cocaine, a quarter-kilogram of fake cocaine (boric acid), and a loaded pistol. McGee had unknowingly purchased several kilograms of fake cocaine and instructed Hill to mix the boric acid into real cocaine for resale on the street to recuperate his losses for the bad cocaine deal. Boric acid is a household cleaner and detergent. When McGee learned that Hill had been arrested, he traveled to a stash house on Harvey Court in Mobile. There, as recorded on the wiretap, McGee instructed several young children, including an eight-year-old boy he described as “game,” to remove a backpack that contained bulk cocaine from the house and throw it over a fence. Agents responded to the house and encountered the children, including a three-year-old boy who was wearing the backpack filled with pounds of cocaine. Inside the house, agents found additional bulk cocaine and loaded firearms that McGee was storing there. After the raid, agents intercepted calls in which McGee attempted to coach the children to lie to Alabama Department of Human Resources personnel about the incident.

In June 2024, agents intercepted several calls involving McGee and his Houston, Texas-based suppliers, Eric Anthony Aguilar and Jonathan Maurice Hackworth, arranging a shipment of five kilograms of cocaine to the DTO in Mobile. During a traffic stop in Mobile on June 13, 2024, agents seized $24,000 in bulk cash that McGee had paid Aguilar for a portion of the drugs. Later that same day, agents arrested McGee after he and one of his DTO lieutenants, Antonio Dwone Reed, attempted to flee in a brief high-speed chase. Agents boxed in the vehicle and encountered McGee with three kilograms of cocaine sitting in his lap. McGee then confessed in a videotaped interview that he had been dealing bulk cocaine since 2017 and earned $20,000 per month in profits.

Following McGee’s arrest, agents intercepted Maxie and her sister, Exavieria Deagnes Maxie (“Exavieria”) plotting to conceal evidence while operating the bugged Escalade. Specifically, Maxie gave Exavieria, a convicted felon, a shoebox full of custom jewelry and a loaded .380 caliber pistol. Exavieria took the jewelry and gun and stashed them in her apartment in west Mobile. Thereafter, on CCTV recordings, Maxie and Exavieria directed a 15-year-old child to find the gun and toss it from a balcony before agents could enter the apartment. When Maxie’s teenage son tried to instruct the 15-year-old, her nephew, how to remove the clip from the loaded weapon, Maxie stated, “No, tell him don’t do all that. Just drop it off. . . . [H]e ain’t got time to do that. We ain’t got time to coach him.” Exavieria was intercepted admitting that she told her 15-year-old son to toss the gun from the balcony. Agents found the loaded pistol near a softball field behind the apartment. Exavieria then admitted to agents that she had brought the gun to her apartment from McGee’s and Maxie’s house. Exavieria had previously been convicted of a federal methamphetamine-trafficking offense and was prohibited from possessing firearms.

Echandza Dianca Maxie was sentenced to 240 months, to run concurrently with the term imposed as to Count 19, and concurrently with the terms imposed in Counts 2, 11, 12 & 13 of case number 24cr00112-002, but consecutively to the term imposed as to Count 12. SRT 3 years, to run concurrently with the terms imposed as to Counts 12 & 19. Restitution $1,833,772.81. Fine $1,000,000.00. SA $100.00.

Glennie Antonio McGee: Imprisonment 135 months, to run concurrently with the term imposed as to Count 22, but consecutively to the term imposed as to Count 13. SRT 3 years, to run concurrently with the terms imposed on Counts 13 & 22. Special conditions (1) model search condition, (2) credit restrictions, (3) financial information to Probation. Restitution $485,968.70. SA $100.00.