Federal judge sentences Cedar Rapids man to 20 years for distributing crack cocaine

CEDAR RAPIDS - A Cedar Rapids man, already serving 60 years in prison for a murder in Illinois, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to more than 20 years for distributing crack cocaine.

Albert Allen, Jr., 30, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to distribute 280 grams or more of crack cocaine. During the plea hearing, Allen admitted he and co-conspirators, including two brothers, distributed the crack for nearly a decade.

During Tuesday's sentencing, prosecutors presented evidence that Allen was found to be affiliated with a gang and was the leader of the drug organization. He had at least five others working for him distributing, storing, arranging deals and transporting the more than two kilograms of crack in the Cedar Rapids area since 2002. Allen even referred to himself as the 'big man boss,” court documents show.

Prosecutors said in a sentencing document that some of the drugs were obtained in Chicago and from other out of state sources. Allen has distributed over 2,000 grams of crack in the Cedar Rapids area. He also cooked powder cocaine into crack cocaine.

Allen also possessed firearms in connection with his drug dealing, the sentencing document shows. After Allen was arrested on the murder charge in Cook County, he instructed two of his dealers to retrieve a safe that contained 6 ounces of crack and a firearm.

Allen and some of his family members were involved in a confrontation with Derrick Roberts which started over a doughnut being unintentionally thrown by his aunt at Roberts in 2009 outside the Mission of Hope, according to testimony in Roberts' trial. After the doughnut incident, Roberts then fired a gun at the Allen family in a van, hitting Delores Smith. Roberts was convicted of assault and other charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

U.S. District Chief Judge Linda Reade ordered Allen's sentencing on the conspiracy charge to run consecutively with his 60-year Illinois prison sentence for killing a man in 2011.

Allen's girlfriend, Faye Brown, asked Allen to shoot 'her other boyfriend,” after they got into an argument at a bar in Dolton, Ill., according to Chicago Tribune article. Allen shot and killed the man later at a house. Police nabbed him during a traffic stop on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids.