Former Leflore County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Head is scheduled to enter a plea on drug trafficking charges in federal court.
Head, 35, 1105 Holloway St., was indicted on a single count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance after the former deputy allegedly received $1,500 for shuttling cocaine for a Leflore County drug dealer.
Head, who’d previously entered a not-guilty plea on the charge, is scheduled to change his plea at a hearing in U.S. District Court before federal Judge Sharion Aycock in Aberdeen April 9 at 2:30 p.m. A pre-sentencing interview is scheduled for immediately after the plea hearing. A trial in the case had been slated to begin April 6.
The federal indictment carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. It was not immediately clear if Head will face reduced charges or receive a sentencing recommendation for entering a plea.
Messages left for Head and for his attorney, state Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, were not returned.
Head has been free on $10,000 bond since being arrested and arraigned on federal charges Dec. 16. The former deputy, who also worked for the Leflore County School District as a bus driver, has filed paperwork to run as an independent for Leflore County Supervisor in District 2, challenging longtime Democratic incumbent Robert Moore.
A plea to a federal felony drug charge would effectively end his candidacy, as Mississippi law prohibits anyone convicted of a felony from holding office.
Head, who had worked as a deputy for six years, was arrested by Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks when he reported for work on Dec. 16 and immediately turned over to federal authorities. The sheriff said that Head was terminated on the spot.
Banks said his department had cooperated with federal authorities for several months while they built a case against Head.
The criminal complaint against Head remains sealed, but an attached affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent John Quaka indicates that the unnamed Leflore County drug dealer who had hired Head to pick up the drugs had been working as an FBI informant.
According to the affidavit, Head allegedly picked up approximately two kilograms of fake cocaine from an undercover FBI agent at Little Round Park on Dec. 4 and — while in uniform and driving his Leflore County Sheriff’s Department patrol car — delivered the fake drugs to the FBI informant.
Quaka wrote in the affidavit that Head and the unnamed informant had been in contact for several years and that Head had tipped off the informant about a planned 2012 raid of his home.
According to the affidavit, Head had also taken cash bribes from the informant for the deputy’s help in dismissing a DUI charge against the informant’s nephew and had agreed to use police databases to check vehicle registrations.
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
