SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Two Spalding County firefighters facing felony charges in connection with a joint Spalding County Sheriff’s Office/Griffin Police Department narcotics investigation were on Tuesday convicted on all counts in US Federal Court.
SCFD Battalion Chief Tyrone Coggins and Firefighter Michael Owens had been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of using a communication facility in facilitating the commission of a felony and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.
Upon the announcement of the guilty verdicts, Coggins and Owens were remanded into federal custody pending sentencing Dec. 19.
Sheriff Wendell Beam had previously stated that both Coggins and Owens were also alleged to have provided information regarding the narcotics investigation to other individuals that were also under investigation.
“They (Coggins and Owens) had received information on our investigation and they were relating it to other suspects,” he said.
The SCSO and GPD received assistance in the original narcotics investigation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Atlanta/Carolinas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas task force.
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