Two Males Convicted Of Armed Carjacking Of Federal Express Truck
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Two males, Ronald Byrd, 37, and Saikeen Dixon, 32, both from Philadelphia have been convicted after they carjacked a Federal Express Truck on August 10,, 2022. They were trying to get a package containing drugs, specifically, cocaine. They were aware that a package from “Karen Boothe” at Caliper Consulting in Buena Park, California, to “Universal Medical Inc” at 3401 North Broad Street, Suite 101, in Philadelphia, which is the address for Temple Hospital.
A former Fedex employee was calling and texting the driver, asking him to give him the package. The driver refused and the calls and texts continued. When the driver was met at Temple by someone who tried to bribe him into giving up the package, the driver called his supervisor. The package was given to the supervisor and the original driver continued his deliveries.
The supervisor followed the driver back to Fed Ex Headquarters when a black jeep that had been following them .At a red light about a block from the FedEx facility, the black Jeep, driven by defendant Dixon, pulled in front of the FedEx truck.
Byrd climbed into the FedEx truck and drove westbound across the Grays Ferry Bridge before pulling over at 47th and Linmore in Southwest Philadelphia, with Dixon following him in the Jeep. Byrd tried to open the back of the FedEx truck but could not, so he abandoned the FedEx vehicle and got back into the Jeep, which fled the scene.
After the carjacking, a trained narcotics K9 alerted to the package that others had been asking for and investigators obtained a search warrant. Inside were nine individual packages wrapped in plastic and labeled “DSQUARED2,” each of which weighed approximately one kilogram and field-tested positive for cocaine. Lab testing later confirmed that the packages contained a total of approximately 9.005 kilograms of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $500,000.
The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on September 29.
Byrd faces a mandatory minimum term of 22 years’ imprisonment and 10 years of supervised release, and a maximum possible sentence of life in prison and a $20,500,000 fine.
Dixon faces a mandatory minimum term of seven years’ imprisonment and five years of supervised release, and a maximum possible sentence of life in prison and a $500,000 fine.