A Norfolk federal jury convicted Antwan Denetrick Hue of murder for hire and a cocaine conspiracy.

Wednesday's verdict is the jury's finding. It is not the sentence. The release says he faces a mandatory life term and that a judge will determine the sentence on March 4, 2027. Those two sentences describe one future hearing, not a term already imposed. 13 News Now put the verdict on the same Wednesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a release dated Oct. 28, 2026, that a federal jury convicted Antwan Denetrick Hue, 42, that day of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, murder for hire, murder while engaged in drug trafficking, and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine. The release headline calls him a dual U.S.-Jamaican citizen. The body of the release states the age and does not repeat the dual citizenship. 13 News Now, in a story published at 8:37 p.m. EDT the same day, reported a federal jury convicted the 42-year-old on Wednesday of those four counts, citing the office. Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, is the day both accounts use. The office said U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen accepted the verdict, and it gave the case number as 2:24-cr-38. 13 News Now did not print the judge or the case number. A verdict is the finding. It is not the sentence.

The office said that, according to court records and the evidence at trial, Hue managed an international drug-trafficking organization from 2015 to 2019. It said he and Regina Sade Chen, also known as Erica Williams, 36, imported multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine into the United States from the Caribbean, including Jamaica, and that they employed transporters including Kayla Bedessie, 34, and Deshawn Hassan Mercer, 33. It said Hue frequently traveled between the United States, Jamaica, and other Caribbean countries. It said that when he applied in 2016 to renew an expiring U.S. passport, he was told he was not eligible because he was in arrears on child support owed to the mother of his minor child. It said that in November 2016 he hired Mercer and Zquan Leon Steeps, 32, to kill her, believing her death would permanently end future child-support payments and let him renew the passport. 13 News Now reported the same years, the same November 2016 hiring, and the same passport account. The child is not named here.

The office said that on Dec. 4, 2016, Mercer, Steeps, and Denasha Campbell, who is now deceased, went to the victim's home in Norfolk. It said Campbell knocked and asked to use the phone, and that Mercer and Steeps forced their way in and shot and killed the victim in front of her 9-year-old child. It said they fled and left the child to call 911. 13 News Now reported that sequence. The office said that after Hue learned child support remains in effect after a parent's death, he negotiated on Dec. 24, 2016, with the victim's mother for her to have full custody of his son if he was discharged from further payments. It said that on Oct. 22, 2018, citing an urgent need to travel to Montego Bay, Jamaica, he obtained a passport renewal, and that in August 2019 the Department of Homeland Security arrested him in Florida as he tried to take possession of a kilogram of cocaine. 13 News Now reported those later dates. The child is not named. Those paragraphs are the trial account the office attributes to the evidence. They are the basis of a verdict. They are not the sentence.

The office said Hue faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on March 4, 2027, and that a federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. 13 News Now reported the same date and the same mandatory life exposure. The office said Chen pleaded guilty on Aug. 29, 2024, to a cocaine conspiracy and faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life. It said Bedessie pleaded guilty the same day and was sentenced on Sept. 8, 2025, to seventy months. 13 News Now printed that term as 70 months. The office said Mercer and Steeps pleaded guilty in October 2024 to conspiracy to commit murder for hire and face a mandatory minimum of life. It said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos, FBI Richmond Special Agent in Charge Ian Kaufmann, and Homeland Security Investigations Washington Acting Special Agent in Charge Kai Wah Chan announced the verdict, and that Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph E. DePadilla and Brian J. Samuels are prosecuting. March 4, 2027, is the sentencing date. It is not a term already imposed. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.