Game Manager Accused of Drug Smuggling

THINGS DON'T GO BETTER WITH COKE: Game manager James Rosemond has been indicted on 18 felony charges of sending cocaine and cash back and forth across the U.S. in music “road cases,” arranging pickups and deliveries at the office of Interscope Records, according to a report in The Smoking Gun. Department of Justice prosecutors provided defense lawyers with shipping records detailing “pickups and deliveries” made at the label’s L.A. office by a cargo firm used to transport the music cases, “stuffed with kilos of cocaine and upwards of $1 million in cash,” the result of a year-long investigation. A key member of the cocaine ring was Khalil Abdullah, a Rosemond associate who recently pleaded guilty to narcotics trafficking and obstruction of justice charges. In late-December, acting on a tip from Abdullah, DEA agents seized a case containing nearly $800,000 from a New York City recording studio. DEA agents subsequently learned that the road manager “had arranged for the case to be transported from the studio in which it was discovered to Los Angeles.” (9/15p)