Jul 14, 2016 2 min read

A 29-year old Washington County man is among seven people who pleaded guilty late last month to federal charges they were involved with what authorities said was a multi-state conspiracy to distribute cocaine and launder the proceeds.

The U.S. attorney’s office announced the June 22 guilty pleas before District Judge Arthur Schwab in PittsburghWednesday. The seven were indicted by a federal grand jury in October.

The office said a supplier in Brownsville, Texas, mailed dozens of packages, totaling about eight kilograms, of cocaine between 2011 and 2015 to Elizabeth and McKeesport, both in Allegheny County. Federal prosecutors said Jeffrey Turner, 35, and April Racan, 37, both of McKeesport, sold the drugs to Brian Kettering of Charleroi and others.

The agency’s office did not name the initial “cocaine source of supply” in Texas.

Authorities said Joseph Borrelli, 49, then a postmaster in West Newton, Westmoreland County, provided addresses of vacant houses. When the packages arrived at the post office, he diverted them to Turner and Racan, according to the Department of Justice.

Money from the drug sales were generally sent back to Texas in cash. Prosecutors said for six months in 2012, however, Kettering and William Coulson, 50, formerly of McKeesport, bought at least $116,700 in money orders and Turner and Racan sent them to a Dairy Queen managed by Daniel Cosme, 35, of San Benito, Texas. Cosme turned the money over to the original supplier, who then had Hugo Balboa, 48, of Brownsville, Texas, deposit the money in bank accounts.

Kettering, Turner, Racan, Cosme, Balboa, Coulson, now of St. Augustine, Flor., pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy. Turner, Racan, Borrelli, Fla., and Kettering pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Sentencing is set for the various defendants in October and early November.

An eighth defendant, Dante Lozano, will be transferred to Western Pennsylvania to face drug and money laundering conspiracy charges.