Drug Dealer Leader Gets 40 Years for Trying to Kill Federal Informant in Oak Park

Chicago, IL - A 40-year prison sentence was handed down May 16 to the leader of a group of armed drug dealers who was convicted of trying to murder a federal informant.

Toby Jones, 38 of Chicago, and his associates tried to kill the informant twice in the spring of 2014 in Oak Park, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in retaliation for the informant helping the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Jones leads a group of armed drug dealers who sold crack cocaine and heroin on Chicago's West Side and in the western suburbs, the USAO reports via testimony at Jones’ trial.

“The south and west sides of Chicago are racked with armed drug dealers who terrorize the community with the violence and social decay that inevitably accompanies their pernicious trade,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean J.B. Franzblau in the government’s sentencing memorandum. Attempting to murder a federal witness is “an effort to weaken the institutions and processes that maintain social order.”

A confidential informant introduced an undercover ATF agent to Jones in December 2013, the USAO reports, and the undercover agent and the informant bought crack cocaine from Jones for several months. Jones arranged to buy a gun with a high-capacity magazine from the undercover agent in exchange for crack cocaine.

Jones sent a drug dealer, Wesley Fields of Chicago, on March 26, 2014, to buy the gun from the undercover agent, and federal authorities arrested Fields during the meeting.

Fields pleaded guilty in 2015 to participating in a drug conspiracy and possessing a firearm, and he was sentenced last week to nine years and nine months in prison.

After Fields was arrested, Toby tried to track down and kill the confidential informant who arranged the gun sale, the USAO reports. Jones fired shots through the door of an apartment in the Oak Park building where the informant lived, wounding a bystander but not injuring the informant.

In a second attempt a week later, Jones' brother, Kelsey Jones, fired shots at the informant's car outside the same Oak Park building, wounding the informant and another person in the car, the USAO reports. All three people shot in the murder attempts survived.

Kelsey Jones, 39 of Chicago, was convicted along with Toby Jones earlier this year of conspiring with each other in the attempted murder of the informant. Toby Jones was also found guilty of distributing cocaine and illegally possessing a firearm. Kelsey Jones was also convicted on gun and drug charges.

Sentencing for Kelsey Jones has not yet been scheduled.

The Oak Park Police Department assisted in the investigation.