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MOBILE, AL – A pair of New Orleans, Louisiana men were each sentenced to two years in federal prison for a scheme to steal motor vehicles and transport them across state lines.

According to court documents, Tim Jackson, 27, and Jerrell Maxon, 25, were part of a group of individuals from New Orleans called the “East Side Wheelie Kings,” who were responsible for breaking into motorcycle shops along the Gulf Coast and stealing motorcycles, dirt bikes, and four-wheelers.

In the early morning hours of May 1, 2018, Jackson, Maxon, and several other individuals stole two trucks from a U-Haul location in Mobile. Surveillance video showed the thieves entering the U-Haul facility through a hole in the fence, starting the stolen trucks by breaking their key cylinders, and ramming the trucks through the property’s gate. A short time later that morning, the defendants and their coconspirators used the stolen U-Haul trucks to ram into the front entrance of Hall’s Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Mobile. The group stole several motorcycles and dirt bikes from the business and took them back to New Orleans. Law enforcement later recovered some of the stolen bikes and the stolen U-Haul trucks in Alabama and Louisiana.

Detectives analyzed the defendants’ cell phone geo-location records, both of which placed them in the vicinity of the victim businesses at the time of the break-ins. Law enforcement executed search warrants at the defendants’ houses in New Orleans and found, among other things, clothing matching that worn by the burglars, a stolen dirt bike, keys for four-wheelers, and handwritten notes for motorcycle shops in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Maxon made recorded calls from jail admitting that he had been “hitting the businesses all over the South.” Jackson admitted that he participated in the burglaries, and records from his Instagram account revealed that he offered one of the motorcycles stolen from Hall’s Motorsports for sale. In total, the victim businesses suffered $147,795 in financial losses due to building damage and stolen property.

Senior United States District Judge William H. Steele ordered the defendants to serve three-year terms of supervised release upon their release from prison, during which time they will be subject to credit restrictions. The court did not order a fine, but Judge Steele ordered the defendants to pay $147,795 in victim restitution and a total of $300 in special assessments.

U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello of the Southern District of Alabama made the announcement.

The Mobile Police Department, the Louisiana State Police, and the New Orleans office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bishop Ravenel and Justin Roller prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.