The founder of a Houston hip-hop label is headed to federal prison for 144 months without the possibility of parole for his role a widespread cocaine trafficking conspiracy that goes back as far as 17 years.
Cocaine was smuggled from Mexico through this city and on to other parts of the United States as part of the conspiracy in which about 40 people have been convicted.
Estell Douglas Hobbs Jr., a grandfather who has no prior criminal record.
He said months earlier that he was under a lot of stress, but could handle it.
Hobbs, the founder of Suckafree Records had fallen on hard times, was working in home reconstruction. He seemed to know what was coming with the criminal charges and that the past was catching up quickly.
“It is not easy. I am human. I worry about it, but I know God will not let anything come to me that I couldn’t deal with,” Hobbs told the Houston Chronicle as he discussed the case many months before pleading guilty.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents had recorded Hobbs in several phone conversations with Abraham Woods, an associate who was quickly released following an arrest for smuggling.
Woods, the group’s primary go-between with Mexico, was found tied up and shot execution-style in 2009 at a Houston apartment. Two bullets were fired into the back of his skull and a pillow case was pulled over his head. Authorities entered the apartment after complaints of a television blaring loudly for about 24 hours.
The case remains unsolved.
