FARGO, N.D. – The former owner of JT Cigarro’s and O’Leary’s Irish Pub is sentenced to nearly 16 years in federal court for leading a cocaine distribution enterprise in Fargo-Moorhead.
Fifty-two-year-old former Fargo businessman Barrett Prody’s organization sold more than 55 pounds of the drug getting hundreds of thousands of dollars and laundering it through business accounts. He used the money to pay for a condo in Florida, rent an apartment in Medellin, Colombia and put $100,000 in an investment account. After being arrested, Prody told someone to transfer his condo and investment account ownership so law enforcement wouldn’t take the money.
Prody plead guilty to several charges.
“Barrett Prody’s greed fueled a yearslong cocaine enterprise that profited off addiction and human suffering,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kopp. “Today’s sentence ensures accountability for his crimes.”
This case is part of Operation Winter Weather, an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation targeting cocaine trafficking in North Dakota.
