Westminster Man Sentenced For Drug Trafficking & Firearms Offenses

Monday, July 14, 2025, 11:00 A.M. ET. 2 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,

BALTIMORE, MD.- Last Thursday, a 35-year-old Westminster, Maryland, man, and a leader of a Westminster drug trafficking organization, was sentenced to over two decades in federal prison after being convicted earlier this year on multiple federal narcotics and firearms offenses.

     According to U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes, on Thursday, July 10, 2025, Rodney Gaines, 35, of Westminster, Maryland, appeared in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Adam B. Ablesonto 276 months in federal prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release after being convicted by a federal jury of Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine and Crack Cocaine; Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime; and two counts of Distribution of Cocaine.

Judge Abelson Also Found Gaines Arranged A Murder

     In addition, on Thursday, Judge Abelson also found that Gaines ordered and arranged the murder of a man in Westminster, Maryland, on January 31, 2022, which allowed the court to apply sentencing enhancements on the grounds that Gaines’s drug offenses involved the use of firearms and violence or threats of violence, and that he served in a leadership role in a narcotics conspiracy.

Wiretaps Uncovered Gaines Used Phrases To Refer To Drugs

     Evidence presented at trial included federal wiretaps that uncovered that Gaines arranged sales of cocaine to numerous drug customers. During the recorded conversations, the cocaine was referred to in coded phrases as “Powder,” “8-Balls,” “Balls,” and “Sister,” among numerous other terms. Maw enforcement Officers and Investigators also seized various quantities of cocaine from Gaines’s customers after he sold it to them.

     The wiretaps also revealed that Gaines sold cocaine in a conspiracy with numerous co-conspirators, including people whom he directed to deliver cocaine to customers. Gaines also prepared crack cocaine by “cooking” powder cocaine into crack. 

Gaines Stashed Crack Cocaine In The Woods

     Gaines also hid drugs in various locations, including burying drugs in wooded areas in and around Westminster. Near the end of the investigation, law enforcement Officers and Agents recovered more than $250,000 in cash from drug proceeds from a storage unit that had been acquired by another member of the drug conspiracy. During court-authorized search warrants, Officers and Agents located and seized quantities of crack cocaine.

     Additionally, evidence was presented that proved that Gaines’s activities and the activities of his conspiracy involved firearms, including Gaines’s efforts to acquire firearms from co-conspirators in January 2022.

     U.S. Attorney Hayes commended the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Maryland State Police, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, and the Westminster Police Department, which led to the successful prosecution of Gaines.