Judge sends West Columbia drug-smuggling couple who helped convict doctor to prison
A federal judge on Monday sentenced to prison a West Columbia husband and wife drug-smuggling team, who were instrumental in getting their Midlands family doctor to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges, according to evidence in the case.
The couple, David Mozingo and his wife of 16 years, Jennifer Mozingo, were sentenced at the federal courthouse in downtown Columbia in separate proceedings by Judge Joe Anderson.
Anderson gave David Mozingo, 50, who ran a motorcycle business in West Columbia, nine years and three months in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and fentanyl and using a gun in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
David Mozingo had for years smuggled drugs in from Mexico, according to court records. When he was arrested in November 2019, Drug Enforcement Administration agents found 22 firearms stashed in his house, eight of them loaded, a DEA agent testified at a hearing later that year.
Jennifer Mozingo, 45, received two years and nine months in prison on the same charges. Evidence in the case indicated she was significantly less culpable than her husband and that she had acted under his influence.
After their 2019 arrests, the Mozingos tipped federal authorities off to a drug-selling operation by them and a West Columbia doctor.
The physician, Dr. James Oscar Williams, a family medicine doctor, pleaded guilty to federal charges in March to using the Mozingos to illegally distribute tens of thousands of prescription pills, such as oxycodone, Adderall, Xanax and hydrocodone.
Williams was the Mozingo’s long-term family doctor, who was prescribing pain pills to the couple, according to evidence in the case.
“Dr. Williams knew that the Defendant (David Mozingo) had the ability to sell a large quantity of oxycodone pills for a substantial profit and wanted to facilitate the conspiracy by writing increasingly larger and larger prescriptions for the Defendant and his wife for part of the profits from the sales,” according to court records.
Williams will be sentenced at a later date.
Longtime SC drug ring
Federal documents and evidence showed David Mozingo was a kingpin in a drug-importing ring in which for years he smuggled counterfeit oxycodone laced with varying amounts of fentanyl from Mexico into the United States, to Kentucky and also into South Carolina.
Although he could have received more than 20 years in prison, assistant U.S. Attorney Mike O’Mara moved for a reduced sentence due to his assistance in Williams’ case and others.
His attorney, Jim Craig, unsuccessfully moved for lesser time, telling Judge Anderson that David Mozingo had spent nearly three years in jail awaiting a final disposition of his and other cases and has numerous health issues, including thyroid cancer, arthritis and diabetes.
David Mozingo — standing in an orange jail jump suit and wearing manacles — apologized to “the court, the prosecutors and the agent” and others, including his “wife, kids, and family for the pain I caused.”
Before her sentence, Jennifer Mozingo told the judge that she had been “brainwashed” by a domineering husband and intimidated into joining him in a life of crime. Weeping at times, she spoke of their two children who were getting ready to go to college.
“I would like to sincerely apologize for all my wrongdoing,” she told Anderson. “I am not only embarrassed but also ashamed and humiliated. I am so much better than the person you are reading about.”
Jennifer Mozingo told the judge that her husband once warned her about discussing their drug deals.
David Mozingo said, “I would be disappeared in the wood chipper or the Everglades,” Jennifer Mozingo told the judge.
Her attorney, Ben Stitely, told the judge Monday that unlike her husband, who had a prior criminal record, she had no criminal record before meeting her spouse.
During their marriage, “she was told in no uncertain terms that if you tell anyone, there are going to be bad people who will come and bad things are going to happen,” Stitely said.
The case was investigated by the DEA, which used informants, geolocation data from cellphones and human surveillance to gather evidence.
In 2019, months before the Mozingo’s arrests, DEA agents tracked David Mozingo to Mexico, where he picked up a shipment of drugs and brought them back to Columbia, according to an affidavit in the case. David Mozingo also shipped the illegal drugs to buyers using FedEx, according to the affidavit.
Anderson summed up the Mozingo proceedings.
“This is an unusual case,” he said at the end.
