Former AACO Sheriff's Office Employee Sentenced Over A Year For Giving Information To Target In Drug Investigation
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A former Anne Arundel County Sheriff's Office employee is sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release for providing information to a target in a drug trafficking investigation.
Chanel Holland, 36, of Glen Burnie, was charged with obstructing an official proceeding, as a result of an investigation that showed Holland provided information on law enforcement activity, including sealed indictments and investigative information, to the target of a drug trafficking investigation.
She was employed as the Human Resource Administrator in the Anne Arundel County Sheriff's Department at the time.
According to her plea agreement, as a result of an investigation to a violent drug trafficking organization, on June 8, 2018, sealed indictments were returned for 10 people, including Traymont Wiley, aka "Whamp", who was believed to be the leader of the organization.
The organization operated in Anne Arundel County and other areas, and was thought to be associated with several murders around the county.
Sealed arrest warrants and search warrants for several locations were also authorized.
On June 11, 2018, police intercepted a conversation between Traymont Wiley and another person on the wiretap authorized as part of the investigation.
Wiley said that he had been told he was going to be arrested on drug and gang-related charges.
Wiley's call led to a "flurry of conversations" monitored on the intercepted lines between targets of the investigation.
During those conversations, it was revealed the targets were reading parts of the sealed indictment out loud, including the names of other co-defendants named in the sealed indictment.
Wiley also read his charges, using exact legal wording from the crimes as stated in the indictment.
On June 12, 2018, an attorney for one of the co-defendants made a motion to the court citing the specific court case number on the sealed indictment and asking the court to unseal and quash a pending sealed arrest warrant.
This all occurred before the indictment and arrest warrants were unsealed and before the search warrants were executed.
Holland's Secure Case Search account was also the only account to search all four names heard during the conversations intercepted by police, a task not included in her duties as a Human Resource Administrator.
On June 20, 2018, police searched Holland's home and her phone was recovered after a search warrant was executed.
Phone messages revealed Holland had been giving information to Wiley and others for several months- as early as April 2018.
She also had phone calls logged with Wiley's phone where she gave more information about the sealed warrants and the charges.
Holland tried to find out if a cooperating source had given information to police which led to the charges against Wiley and the other co-conspirators, and also gave information about suspected cooperating sources to Wiley and others, including pictures of those people and information about the status of their court cases.
Holland admitted she didn't want Wiley and his co-conspirators to get any additional charges, so she alerted them about the outstanding warrants and indictments.
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