A Grandview, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a $4.1 million drug-trafficking conspiracy, which is linked to two murders, and which distributed approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas.
Gerald Lee Ginnings, 43, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Greg Kays to 520 months (43.3 years) in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Ginnings to pay a money judgment of $86,750.00, which represents the proceeds he received from the drug-trafficking conspiracy. That forfeiture amount is based on the defendant’s specific unlawful distribution of approximately 7 kilograms of methamphetamine, based on an average street sale price of $500 per ounce. The overall conspiracy distributed at least 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in less than 2 years.
On Oct. 21, 2022, Ginnings pleaded guilty to participating in conspiracies to distribute methamphetamine and launder drug proceeds from Jan. 1, 2017, Sept. 1, 2018, to possessing a firearm in relation to a drug-trafficking crime, and to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Ginnings was arrested several times in 2018 in possession of methamphetamine and firearms.
The drug-trafficking organization with which Ginnings was associated was responsible for two murders. In August 2018, James Hampton was seized in St. Louis by members of the same drug-trafficking conspiracy that supplied Ginnings with methamphetamine, although Ginnings was not in St. Louis, Mo., with this group when Hampton was seized. Hampton was seized because the drug conspiracy were convinced Hampton could help find the drugs and money stolen by co-conspirator David Richards. When they realized Hampton could not or would not help, Hampton was restrained and beaten. Hampton was then transported from St. Louis to Kansas City, in the trunk of his own car. Brittanie Broyles, who was with Hampton and witnessed him being beaten and restrained, was also taken to Kansas City, where she later sent text messages from a co-conspirator’s phone she secreted her plight to family and friends in St. Louis. They were unable to locate her before she was murdered.
On Aug. 6, 2018, Hampton’s car and body were discovered burning in Bates City, Mo. On Aug. 8, 2018, Broyles’s body was recovered near Super Flea in the Northeast area of Kansas City. She had been murdered by two gunshots to her head. Witnesses and video identified Ginnings being followed by co-defendant Markus Michael A. Patterson, of Kansas City, Mo., in another co-conspirator’s car as Ginnings drove Hampton’s car to Bates City. Patterson was recently sentenced to 560 months on the same charges.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone involved in drug trafficking to possess firearms related to that trafficking and it is also illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Ginnings has prior felony convictions for statutory rape, failure to register as a sex offender, and numerous assaults and car thefts.
Ginnings is among 32 co-defendants who have pleaded guilty in this case and its companion case.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades and Robert M. Smith. It was investigated by the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, the Sni Valley Fire Department, the Jackson, Lafayette, Buchanan, and Phelps County, Mo., Sheriff’s Departments, the FBI, the Jackson County Drug Task Force, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the St. James, Mo., Police Department.
