A federal jury in Norfolk, Virginia, convicted Antwan Denetrick Hue, 42, on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, of orchestrating the murder-for-hire killing of the mother of his child, alongside the international cocaine-trafficking operation prosecutors said he ran between the United States and the Caribbean. Hue, a dual U.S.-Jamaican citizen, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, murder for hire, murder while engaged in drug trafficking, and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine. He faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on March 4, 2027.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Virginia
The verdict was accepted by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen in the Eastern District of Virginia's Norfolk Division. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos announced the outcome alongside FBI Richmond Special Agent in Charge Ian Kaufmann and Homeland Security Investigations Washington, D.C., Acting Special Agent in Charge Kai Wah Chan. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph E. DePadilla and Brian J. Samuels prosecuted the case, court case number 2:24-cr-38. There is no parole in the federal prison system.
Source: U.S. District Court filing, Case No. 2:24-cr-38 (EDVA)
A passport problem that prosecutors say turned deadly
According to the evidence presented at trial, the murder conspiracy began in 2016, when Hue tried to renew his expiring American passport and was told he could not, because of outstanding child support payments owed to the mother of his minor son. Rather than paying what he owed, prosecutors established, Hue arranged in November 2016 for Deshawn Hassan Mercer, 33, and Zquan Leon Steeps, 32, to kill the child's mother, believing her death would end the payments that were blocking his passport and his ability to travel internationally.
On December 4, 2016, Mercer, Steeps and Denasha Campbell, who is now deceased, travelled to the woman's home in Norfolk, according to the trial evidence. Campbell approached the residence and asked to use the telephone. When the victim responded, Mercer and Steeps forced their way inside and fatally shot her in front of her nine-year-old child, who was left to call 911. Court records in the case identify the victim as Charlene Ryals. Awaaz Punjab is not naming the child, who was a witness, in line with its minor-safety rule.
Source: U.S. District Court filing, Case No. 2:24-cr-38 (EDVA)
The evidence also established that the killing did not end Hue's child support obligations. On December 24, 2016, three weeks after the murder, Hue negotiated with the victim's mother, seeking an arrangement under which she would take full custody of his son in exchange for releasing him from future child support payments. He eventually obtained a renewed passport on October 22, 2018, after submitting an application citing an urgent need to travel to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The trafficking operation behind the case
Prosecutors said Hue managed the trafficking organisation alongside Regina Sade Chen, also known as Erica Williams, 36. The operation imported multi-kilogram shipments of cocaine from Caribbean locations, including Jamaica, and used couriers, among them Kayla Bedessie, 34, and Mercer, to move narcotics into the United States and transport the proceeds back out of the country. Hue travelled regularly between the United States, Jamaica and other Caribbean nations to coordinate the network. In August 2019, the Department of Homeland Security arrested him in Florida as he attempted to take possession of a kilogram of cocaine.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Virginia
Four other conspirators had already pleaded guilty before Hue's trial. Chen pleaded guilty on August 29, 2024, to the cocaine conspiracy and faces 10 years to life. Bedessie pleaded guilty the same day and was sentenced on September 8, 2025, to 70 months in federal prison. Mercer and Steeps pleaded guilty in October 2024 to conspiracy to commit murder for hire, and both face mandatory life imprisonment.
Background: the task-force prosecution
The prosecution was brought as part of the federal Homeland Security Task Force initiative, an interagency effort aimed at transnational criminal organisations, narcotics trafficking and organised violence. The Washington, D.C., task force brings together the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other federal partners. The case shows how a child-support dispute, a passport application and a Caribbean drug pipeline ended up in a single federal courtroom in Norfolk, a port city on the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia.
What happens next
Hue returns to court on March 4, 2027, for sentencing, where the murder convictions carry a mandatory life term in federal prison. Mercer and Steeps also still face their own mandatory-life exposure on their guilty pleas, and Chen awaits sentence on the drug conspiracy. For readers in Virginia's Punjabi and immigrant communities, the practical lesson in this case is procedural as much as criminal: a blocked passport over unpaid child support is a civil problem with civil remedies, and the federal system treated the violent shortcut Hue chose instead as one of the most serious crimes on its books.