Wayne County sheriff’s deputy Michael Kenneth Cox received a six-year, two-month prison sentence for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and a mail and wire fraud conspiracy.
A Wayne County sheriff’s deputy received a six-year, two-month sentence for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and a mail and wire fraud conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Michael Kenneth Cox, 49, will also have three years of supervised release after the sentence.
“We discovered Cox’s criminal activity as part of a much larger, multi-year investigation into dozens of drug traffickers across eastern North Carolina known as Operation Polar Bear,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina Michael Easley Jr.
Citing court documents and other information presented in court, the Justice Department said Cox helped two drug traffickers evade chargers while he was a Wayne County deputy.
Easley said Cox is the former head of the narcotics unit at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office. Cox worked for the sheriff’s office from 1996 until 2018, when he retired.
He pleaded guilty in March to helping drug traffickers evade charges while he was an officer of the law.
Cox and another deputy, Christopher Worth, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Worth, who worked for the sheriff’s office from 1993 through 2023, is set to be sentenced in October.
According to the Justice Department, Cox provided protection to the drug traffickers under the ruse that they were confidential informants. In exchange, Cox used the traffickers to supply him with Percocet and oxycodone.
An investigation showed that Cox had breached his oath to protect his community, Easley said.
“We found that he actively protected drug traffickers that engaged in violent criminal activity and who brought narcotics poisoning our communities, especially around the Wayne County deputy,” Easley said.
In 2017, the Justice Department said Cox saw one of his drug traffickers make a purchase from the target of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation. Rather than arrest the trafficker, he seized the drugs and reimbursed him $2,000 for the sale and gave him another $200 as a “confidential informant fee,” claiming it had been a planned, controlled purchase.
Cox also arranged a cocaine transaction between two protected drug traffickers, the Justice Department said. A drug trafficker said Cox warned him about conducting a home invasion where authorities thought there was a large amount of drugs, and the invasion took place 10 days later, according to the Justice Department.
Cox continued to protect drug traffickers after he retired from law enforcement, the Justice Department said.
The Justice Department said in 2019, a confidential informant working for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office was shot, called 911, and informed the 911 operator that he had been shot by one of Cox’s protected drug traffickers.
According to the Justice Department, Cox found out about the shooting and contacted investigators that same night to provide an alibi for his protected drug trafficker. Cox then assisted the drug trafficker with obtaining a defense attorney, the Justice Department said. During a federal investigation of the shooting, Cox lied about his contacts with the protected drug trafficker following the shooting.
In 2021, one of the protected drug traffickers was the target of a federal wiretap investigation.
“Cox was intercepted on a wiretap ordering oxycodone pills from one of his protected traffickers,” Easley said. “Then, when a trafficker identified a GPS tracker on his car, he called Cox.
“Cox placed phone calls to his former colleagues at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office to gather intel, and then tipped off the trafficker that the tracker belonged to ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], notifying the trafficker that it was a federal investigation and giving the trafficker an opportunity to thwart that investigation.”
Operation Polar Bear led to the indictment and conviction of 41 people.
The operation seized 36 guns, 16 kilograms of methamphetamine, four kilograms of heroin, cocaine and enough fentanyl to kill 225,000 people, according to the Department of Justice.