Armed Savannah Drug Dealer Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison

SAVANNAH, GA: Tyrone Anwan Broadnax, 35, a multi-convicted felon who has sold drugs and perpetrated violence in Savannah for many years, was sentenced yesterday by Chief U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to 168 months in prison for trafficking cocaine, crack cocaine, and ethylone, a Schedule I psychedelic controlled substance.

According to court documents and evidence presented at hearings, Broadnax was stopped by police on July 22, 2015 after undercover officers saw him engage in a hand-to-hand drug transaction in Savannah’s Victorian District. A search of Broadnax’s car revealed 95 baggies of drugs packaged for sale and a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol equipped with a high-capacity magazine. An infant girl was in the backseat of the car as Broadnax drove through Savannah with his drugs and gun. Following his arrest, Broadnax gave a full confession to police and bragged, “I sell every drug. . . . Every drug was in there today.”

Broadnax’s criminal history and involvement with guns and drugs stretches over two decades. In 1995, at the age of 14, Broadnax and two accomplices mugged a man at gunpoint in downtown Savannah. In 2002, shortly after Broadnax was released from prison, he was arrested for selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of a housing project. He served less than half of a seven-year prison sentence. In 2005, Broadnax was arrested for trafficking crack cocaine and unlawfully possessing a stolen firearm. Although he was sentenced in 2007 to a 10-year term of incarceration, Broadnax was paroled in April 2008. Seven months later, he committed a shooting in Savannah’s Hitch Village neighborhood.

U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver stated, “Too often, career criminals like Tyrone Broadnax come to believe that serving a short stint in state prison is simply the cost of doing business. This United States Attorney’s Office is committed to stopping the revolving door and ensuring that felons who terrorize our community with gun violence and pollute our streets with drugs bear the full weight of their misdeeds. Gun-using drug dealers in this District should expect to be sentenced to long sentences that will be served without parole in federal prisons far away.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted Broadnax as part of Project Ceasefire, a joint federal, state and local initiative to combat gun violence and ensure that repeat offenders are subjected to stiff federal prison sentences, all of which must be served without the possibility of parole.

The case was investigated by the ATF and the Undercover Narcotics Investigation Team of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department (“SCMPD”). SCMPD’s K-9 Unit and the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole provided support. Assistant United States Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.