The leader of a group of armed drug dealers was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison for shooting a federal informant in west suburban Oak Park in 2014.
U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve sentenced 38-year-old Toby Jones of Chicago to 40 years in prison, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Jones was convicted earlier this year of conspiring with his older brother in the attempted murder of an informant, as well as distributing cocaine and illegally possessing a firearm.
Beginning in December 2013, the informant worked with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives in a sting operation targeting Jones, who sold crack cocaine and heroin on the West Side and in the west suburbs, prosecutors said. At one point, Jones had arranged to buy a gun with a high-capacity magazine from an undercover ATF agent in exchange for drugs.
When Jones sent one of his dealers to make the exchange on March 26, 2014, the dealer was arrested, prosecutors said. Jones then tried to shoot the informant who helped set up the meeting on two separate occasions.
In the first shooting, Jones fired several shots through the front door of an apartment in the informant’s building in Oak Park, prosecutors said. The informant was not injured, but another person was wounded.
The second shooting happened a week later when Jones’ older brother, 39-year-old Kelsey Jones, went up to the informant’s car and shot him and another person in the car, prosecutors said.
A jury also convicted Kelsey Jones on gun and drug charges in addition to the attempted murder, prosecutors said. His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Wesley Fields, the dealer whom Toby Jones sent to buy the gun, pleaded guilty last year to participating in a drug conspiracy and possessing a firearm, prosecutors said. He was sentenced last week to nine years and nine months in prison.
