On April 21, 2025, United States District Court Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock sentenced Phyliss Joy Ferris of Wake Forrest, North Carolina, to 24 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to possession with the intent to distribute cocaine.
Documents filed with the court established that on October 24, 2022, the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Unit stopped Ferris on Interstate 65 for a traffic violation.
During the traffic stop, a deputy smelled the odour of marijuana, and officers began a probable cause search of the vehicle based on the odour of marijuana. Ferris was the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle.
Officers located the top to a marijuana dispensary jar that still contained small remnants of green leafy substance consistent with marijuana.
Inside Ferris’ purse, officers located a bottle of “Blunt Bomb”, a cover agent commonly used to mask the odour of marijuana. The defendant later told officers that she purchased the “Blunt Bomb” while on the trip to help cover the odour of marijuana in the vehicle.
As officers continued to search, they opened the spare tire well inside the vehicle’s rear cargo area. Inside, they found a Ziploc bag wrapped in duct tape. White powder consistent with cocaine could be seen through cracks in the tape on the “brick” or kilo of suspected cocaine.
Officers removed the cocaine from the vehicle, and the DEA Laboratory later confirmed the powder was cocaine weighing 1007 grams.
In a later interview with a DEA Task Force Officer, Ferris admitted to being paid to make previous trips for the organisation that hired her to transport the cocaine from Texas to North Carolina.
