Rochelle Brooks
An Atlantic City woman arrested as part of a major drug-trafficking case in 2022 will now stay jailed after her second arrest while on release.
Rochelle Brooks’ problems are more the company she keeps than her own criminality, her attorney argued during a detention hearing this week.
The woman had no criminal record before her arrest in November 2022, as part of Operation Florida Keys, an investigation that led to an alleged drug-trafficking enterprise led by twin brothers Justin and Joseph Suarez.
More than a dozen people were arrested in the case, with most still pending.
While there have been a few guilty pleas, no one has been sentenced in the case.
The brothers remain jailed, although most in the case are on the street.
That was the case for Brooks, who was arrested inside her South Florida Avenue apartment with Howard Cubbage, an alleged captain in the Florida Avenue drug network.
Just feet away from their shared bedroom, police seized a duffle bag containing a second-degree amount of fentanyl, Assistant Prosecutor Chris D’Esposito reminded the judge during Brooks’ latest detention hearing.
She incurred a criminal trespass charge last August. At that time, Judge Donna Taylor gave her another chance, releasing her with conditions that she report every other week and remain law-abiding.
But she did not, according to her latest charges.
This time, Brooks, 37, was spotted on South Florida Avenue by detectives tasked with watching high-crime areas in the Tourism District.
Their target was actually the man she was walking with — Khalil Bryant — who was wanted on drug charges after fleeing police, according to the affidavit of probable cause obtained by BreakingAC.
They noted that Bryant, 30, was carrying a black satchel.
But when they arrested him after Bryant and Brooks entered the Corner Store at Bellevue and Atlantic avenues, he no longer had the satchel, the affidavit states. Brooks did.
The satchel was searched and the detectives found a Dolce and Gabbana beauty bag containing 21 yellow plastic vials/capsules containing what was believed to be crack cocaine.
Brooks was then arrested.
Defense attorney Jake Bayak questioned that search, and also pointed out that every time his client is arrested, it’s with someone else.
It’s not her own criminality but “she’s around other people that are getting in trouble and she’s caught up in the mix,” he told the judge.
Brooks was getting ready to start classes Monday in Cherry Hill to become certified as a home health aide, Bayak said.
He also was set to have her entered into pretrial intervention on her prior charges, which would have her avoid incarceration.
She still could be eligible, Bayak added.
But D’Esposito said two of the people who have pleaded guilty in the original drug case confirmed Brooks’ involvement in the ring.
One even said that Brooks worked under her, tasked with selling crack cocaine, which is what she was again allegedly caught with, D’Esposito said.
The public safety assessment, which helps determine whether a defendant should be held under bail reform, recommended she be held.
Judge Taylor agreed.
“The court has already given her several chances to continue to remain law-abiding,” Taylor said. “Her criminality continues in the same fashion as previously related to her other charges. At this time she cannot follow any law orders to remain law-abiding.”
