St. Louis Area Man Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Maintaining Drug-Involved Premises

ST. LOUIS – A man who pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the maintaining of a drug-involved premises in St. Louis was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison.

Aeman Ali, 23, was one of three defendants in the case. Zaki Salman and Haeder Jameel also pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to prison after admitting a role in a conspiracy that resulted in one fatal and one non-fatal overdose in 2022.

Salman and Jameel bought drugs in California. Salman advertised the drugs on social media and directed the sale of the drugs from a home in the 4400 block of Ohio Street in St. Louis from August 20, 2022, through Dec. 14, 2022. The men sold real Percocet pain pills and fake pills that contained fentanyl. When Salman was not at the home, Jameel or Ali would handle the transactions.

Salman delivered drugs to a minor on Sept. 18, 2022, who thought she was buying Percocet. She suffered an overdose but was saved by multiple doses of Narcan. Salman and Jameel also admitted that the fentanyl purchased by a 16-year-old male on Nov. 19, 2022, resulted in his overdose death. Before his death, the teen exchanged messages with the conspirators regarding the purchase of Xanax or Percocet.

When law enforcement officers conducted a court-approved search of the home on Dec. 14, 2022, they found cocaine, MDMA, fentanyl, amphetamine and prescription pills. Jameel answered the door with a loaded .45-caliber handgun that he left on the kitchen table as he ran for the back door.

Ali had a limited role in a “drug trafficking operation that proved to be extraordinarily volatile and dangerous,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Finlen wrote in a sentencing memo.

Jameel, 23, and Salman, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises. Jameel also pleaded guilty to one count of possession with the intent to distribute MDMA and fentanyl. Salman pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of fentanyl with a serious bodily injury resulting.

Salman, of Hazelwood, was sentenced in June to 20 years in prison. Jameel was sentenced in July to 16 years and eight months in prison. Both were also ordered to pay $51,005 in restitution to the parents of the teen who died.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the Florissant Police Department, the O’Fallon, Missouri Police Department and the St. Charles County Regional Drug Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Finlen prosecuted the case.