Sirius XM DJ, U.S. postal worker charged in alleged narcotics trafficking case, DA says

A SiriusXM radio DJ and a postal worker teamed up in an alleged drug trafficking scheme that funneled cocaine and fentanyl from California to Hempstead until their arrests this week following a probe that yielded a seizure of $1 million in drugs, authorities said Thursday.

“By arresting these defendants, we have struck an important blow against the narcotic trade here in Nassau County. We have shut down a major pipeline into Long Island,” Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly said at a news conference about the case.

Lance Holmes, who’s known as “DJ Love Dinero," pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Nassau County Court to felony charges that include operating as a major drug trafficker, first-degree attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance and conspiracy.

Holmes, 40, of Hollis, Queens, was at Nassau’s jail Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bond or $250,000 cash and faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

U.S. Postal Service mail carrier Adrianna Lewis pleaded not guilty at a Wednesday arraignment to charges that include first-degree attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal facilitation and conspiracy.

Lewis, 31, of Rockville Centre, was at Nassau’s jail Thursday after not making bail of $100,000 bond or $50,000 cash. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Her attorney, William Kephart, told Newsday his client works full time for the postal service and has a teenage son.

“We were just apprised of the charges … We’ll need to conduct our own investigation into what has allegedly taken place,” he said.

Holmes’ attorney, Greg Madey, said the allegations against his client seem “out of character for somebody who is 40 years old, has a family and a wife and has never been arrested before.”

Madey added: “Let’s take a look at the evidence before we determine that what the District Attorney’s Office is saying is actually true.”

Law enforcement officials said Lewis was suspended from her government job. A SiriusXM representative said Holmes, a part-time contractor for the company, also was suspended.

Law enforcement officials said they recovered 10 kilos of cocaine and 1 kilo of fentanyl — the latter of which Donnelly said was enough to fuel “more than 300,000 deadly doses.”

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said at the news conference that in the county this year there have been 412 drug overdoses — including 80 fatal instances — amid an ongoing opioid epidemic.

He said most of the overdoses involved fentanyl -- a powerful synthetic opioid -- mixed in with cocaine or heroin.

“The lives that are being saved here today by the work that’s being done here by this team is immeasurable,” Ryder added.

Authorities have alleged the drugs were shipped to New York from California in U.S. Postal Service medium-sized flat rate priority mail packages — each with approximately one or two kilos of narcotics inside.

They said the packages bound for Nassau County were sent to addresses along the route of Lewis, who is based out of the Fulton Avenue postal facility in Hempstead.

Lewis intercepted the packages and gave them to Holmes, according to authorities, who said she earned $500 for each successful delivery.

Lewis allegedly recognized each drug shipment based on the type of postal box and the tracking number, according to prosecutors. They said each shipment was bound for a random address on her route and either addressed to Holmes or random, uninvolved people.

Lewis would allegedly directly hand off a package to Holmes on her route, or she would drop it in an apartment building and he would come in behind her and take it, according to prosecutors.

 Authorities said Holmes also allegedly used addresses in Queens, Suffolk and Manhattan to receive drug shipments, and even allegedly called the postal service in June to ask about a parcel destined for a Manhattan address that had cocaine in it. 

Authorities said they intercepted from the mail four drug kilos in Hempstead, one in Suffolk, two in Queens and four in Manhattan — an operation involving K9 units from Nassau’s police force and the State Police.

 The FBI Long Island Gang Task Force, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the ATF Long Island Firearms Task Force, the NYPD and Rockville Centre police teamed with Nassau prosecutors and police on the probe. 

Law enforcement officials said the investigation began as an offshoot of the March 2021 bust of a Hempstead-based narcotics ring in which authorities seized $2.7 million in drugs and two of the 41 defendants allegedly operated out of unlicensed day care centers.

While executing a search warrant in that probe, dubbed “Operation Honeycomb,” authorities found postal service priority boxes with labels that were torn up and wrappers like those used for drug kilos, officials said.

They reconstructed the postal labels and realized drugs were being mailed from California, according to authorities. They said that after figuring out that the local address involved had nothing to do with the drug operation, they turned an eye toward the postal carrier.

Holmes is an alleged associate of one of the Honeycomb defendants whose case for allegedly being a major drug trafficker remains pending, prosecutors said Thursday.