Sedalia Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Drug Trafficking

 JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Sedalia, Missouri, man was sentenced in federal court today for distributing crack cocaine.

Jeffery Wayne Taylor, 55, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 20 years in federal prison without parole.

On July 6, 2020, Taylor was convicted at a bench trial of two count of distributing crack cocaine and one count of possessing crack cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Taylor sold a total of 32.8 grams of crack cocaine to a confidential informant, working with law enforcement, on 10 separate occasions from March 2 to June 8, 2018. Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Taylor’s residence on June 8, 2018, and seized crack cocaine packaged for sale, which was hidden under the lowest piece of vinyl siding attached to the house.

Taylor’s initial sale of crack cocaine to the confidential informant on March 2, 2018, was approximately six months after his release on probation following his third drug-trafficking conviction in state court. Taylor had been sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment under Missouri’s shock incarceration program and was released to a term of five years of probation on Aug. 9, 2017. In addition to manufacturing crack cocaine, Taylor was also found in possession of several firearms. Although he knew he faced a 15-year prison sentence, Taylor began selling crack cocaine to the confidential informant about six months later.

Taylor’s extensive criminal history began in 1990 when he started a fight in which the victim was punched and kicked in the head, face, and chest, and suffered a broken nose, abrasion to the left cornea, laceration to the upper lip, and a number of bruises and abrasions which required hospitalization for several days. The next year, Taylor was convicted of driving while intoxicated, an offense for which he was also convicted six years later in 1997. While on probation from his 1991 felony assault conviction, Taylor was charged in four different cases with felony distribution of a controlled substance, twice in 1993, and twice again in 1996. Just a year after completing his term of probation for his felony assault conviction, in 1997, Taylor was arrested and charged with felony statutory rape, two driving while intoxicated offenses, and three counts of felony distribution of a controlled substance. That same year, in a separate case, he was convicted of three counts of distributing cocaine and one count of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November 1997 (the maximum sentence the state court could impose). Taylor served about seven years of his term and was granted parole in June 2004. He was also convicted in 1998 of two additional counts of distributing cocaine and sentenced to the maximum sentence of 15 years of imprisonment. Taylor was paroled in 2004 and, while on parole, arrested for stalking his ex-wife in 2010.

This case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron M. Jolly. It was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Sedalia, Mo., Police Department.