JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It was around midnight on Sept. 18, 2023, and Nathaniel Hatcher was enraged. He had just fallen for the oldest trick in the book.
Investigators said Hatcher met with two men in a gas station parking lot on Old St. Augustine Road to buy two suitcases full of marijuana. But after the meeting was over, he and the alleged violent Jacksonville gang he was affiliated with had no drugs — and they were out $45,000 in cash.
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The two suitcases the men handed over to Hatcher were supposed to be carrying pounds of weed, instead, he quickly learned, there were just bedsheets and linens inside.
By the time Hatcher noticed, it was too late. He had already handed over the forty-five grand.
In a desperate attempt to get his money back, Hatcher grabbed onto the handle of the Mercedes sedan as it peeled out of the parking lot and didn’t let go. He was dragged several feet on his back before he finally let go and crashed onto the pavement. He was left with “significant” skin injuries to his “backside,” according to court documents.
A short time later, his brother, James Toney, who prosecutors said was responsible for carrying out violence on behalf of the gang, sent a warning in a text to the men who played Hatcher: “You can still make this right.”
The following day, investigators said Hatcher FaceTimed a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer who helped set a plan in motion that would end with a brazen shooting on a crowded interstate in St. Johns County and ultimately the arrest of Hatcher, Toney, the JSO officer and other members of the drug operation.
Investigators laid out the account of the deal gone wrong and the highway shooting in a 30-page guilty plea deal in which each page was signed by Toney. Hatcher has not yet responded in court to the version of events detailed by investigators.
(Editor’s Note: The Department of Justice said the factual basis of the filed plea agreement signed by James Toney includes elements that the government intended to prove at trial, not Toney’s actual statements.)
Investigators also revealed the intricacies of the bi-coastal drug operation they said Toney and his brother were a part of, as well as the lengths they allegedly went to exact revenge.
The call to a JSO officer
On Sept. 19, 2023, still feeling the effects of getting dragged by a car, Hatcher picked up his Apple iPhone and made a FaceTime call.
Federal investigators said the call was to a now-former JSO officer.
The name of the officer was not released in the announcement of Toney’s guilty plea last week, and News4JAX was unable to confirm with authorities exactly who that call went to. A U.S. Attorney spokesperson said the JSO officer has not been publicly identified in court documents or during open court.
“We cannot confirm the identity for you at this time,” the spokesperson said in an email to News4JAX on Monday.
But when News4JAX compared the information from Toney’s guilty plea with the case of ex-JSO Officer Christopher Barr, the evidence lined up.
According to Duval County court records, the same day Hatcher made his FaceTime call, Barr, who was still with JSO at the time, picked up a FaceTime call.
What Barr did next led to his arrest in January 2024 and his resignation from JSO. He was later sentenced to two months in jail followed by two years of probation after pleading guilty to unauthorized access.
Sheriff T.K. Waters said during a news conference that Barr used the information from his unauthorized access to help “criminals” and that there was a “very strong possibility” that those criminals were connected to gang activity.
News4JAX asked JSO about Barr and a possible connection to the case and a JSO spokesman issued this statement: “Former police officer, Christopher Barr, was arrested by our agency for violating agency policy and Florida State Statutes as it relates to the improper use of a computer, a felony.JSO would not be able to comment on the relationship of the former officer to a homicide investigation being investigated by another jurisdiction.”
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While Waters did not name the people Barr had helped, federal investigators said that the JSO officer Hatcher spoke to via FaceTime that day helped the gang find out the full names of the people who hustled them.
Their information was in JSO’s Agency Records Management System (ARMS), a restricted system, because of an arrest the day before following another suspected drug deal between the two sides in San Marco (more on that later).
According to Barr’s arrest report, he accessed an incident report in ARMS and five minutes later, information that could only have come from that report — including the full names and addresses of those involved — was shared in a group chat that happened to include a person who was the subject of a federal investigation.
Earlier in the chat, that subject indicated he was going to reach out to Barr for information, and a screenshot from that subject’s phone showed the group chat in the background and a minimized FaceTime conversation over it. The FaceTime window showed Barr in his JSO uniform inside what appeared to be a JSO patrol vehicle, according to Barr’s arrest report.
The deal before the deal gone wrong
Before the drug deal on Sept. 18, Hatcher and the men who would later make off with his money arranged a test buy, records show. (News4JAX is choosing not to identify the men because they have not been charged with any serious crimes)
Hatcher, the two men and another man, only identified through their initials in court documents, met at a house rented by Hatcher on River Road.
Investigators said the house was used by DTO, a large-scale and heavily-armed drug gang that moved marijuana out of Airbnbs and other rental homes around Duval County. Prosecutors said Hatcher was the leader of DTO and was moving weight from growers and distributors in California to Jacksonville.
Federal agents said Toney and other DTO members routinely flew from Jacksonville to the Sacramento area to get the product and took it back to Jacksonville in their luggage. DTO also shipped the weed through the U.S. mail system or used commercial bus lines to Kentucky, according to court records.
Once the weed arrived in Jacksonville, it was taken to one of the homes rented by Hatcher. Investigators said he and others would take inventory, price out the product, and push it out to DTO’s retail distributors.
Federal investigators said that after getting warrants for iCloud accounts and cellphones, agents found text messages between Hatcher and others talking about the drug operation.
One of the key players in the operation, according to federal investigators, was Yaquasia DelCarmen, Hatcher’s girlfriend who pleaded guilty to drug and witness tampering crimes. An agent said they reviewed bank statements and other financial records that showed that during the drug conspiracy, DelCarmen transferred tens of thousands of dollars in suspected drug proceeds into Hatcher’s bank accounts and acted as a manager and supervisor. She was also one of the people helping to bring in weed from California.
But apparently, Hatcher wanted a bigger connection closer to home. Enter the three sets of initials in Toney’s guilty plea.
Hatcher set up the pre-deal and the plan was for Hatcher and Toney to pay $3,000 cash for one pound of marijuana, investigators said. If the quality was good, DTO would buy a much larger amount later that night.
Little did they know that JSO was already watching.
Federal investigators said that detectives with JSO were surveilling the DTO stash house as part of a separate gang-related investigation.
While the detectives were watching, the three sellers showed up in a white Mercedes sedan. Detectives said they watched as Hatcher handed $3,000 to the driver of the Mercedes in exchange for one pound of weed.
After the handoff, JSO pulled the Mercedes over two blocks away on San Marco Boulevard and found the driver with a small amount of cocaine. Even though the driver was immediately taken to jail, records show that the other two in the car agreed to meet Toney and Hatcher later that night for the bigger deal.
It was the incident report from this arrest — with the help of a JSO officer — that later provided the information Toney and Hatcher needed to carry out their revenge.
Plotting revenge
After Hatcher got duped, and after the JSO officer handed Hatcher the names of those who duped him for $45,000, DTO started thinking about payback, according to investigators.
But first, they had to keep business humming.
Investigators said that after he was fleeced, Hatcher sent a text to one of his drug suppliers and said he “may have to only get 50 pcs [pounds] tomorrow someone stole 44k last night.” Hatcher then told DTO members to move their flights to re-up from California to the next day. Hatcher told DTO members they needed to spend the next 30 days working nonstop to get their money back, according to Toney’s plea deal.
Meanwhile, they started to plot.
Toney, Hatcher and other members of DTO allegedly “tracked and cyber-stalked” the three dealers and their families and even planned to drive to the home of one of the dealers' family members in Orlando. Federal investigators said plans to retaliate with violence started the day after he lost $45,000, and DTO members even went to the Duval County Jail to wait for the dealer who got arrested to be released with the intention of following him.
They didn’t track him down that day, but about a month later, investigators said they used public court dockets to track him to the Duval County Courthouse where he had a hearing for his cocaine arrest.
Highway shooting
On Oct. 15, 2023, investigators said Toney and others traveled to the Jacksonville International Airport and stole two cars from the Hertz Rental Car facility, including a red Dodge Charger.
Two days later, investigators said Toney and other DTO members went to the courthouse. When the dealer left his court hearing in his Mercedes, he and others followed in the stolen Charger and Hatcher followed in his gray Audi SUV.
They finally caught up to their target on Interstate 95 in St. Johns County.
A minute-long dashboard camera video from a truck captured what happened next.
The video showed a light-colored Mercedes driving in the left southbound lane just before 11:23 a.m. on the crowded highway. Then the red Charger that was riding behind the Mercedes sped up to switch lanes to get on the right side. An Audi SUV, which investigators said was being driven by Hatcher, helped box in the Mercedes so it couldn’t escape.
The video, which does not have sound, then showed the Charger getting in front of Mercedes before someone inside the Charger fired the first shots.
The driver of the Mercedes slammed on his brakes as more shots were fired into the car. At one point, a bullet could be seen exploding through the back window.
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At one point, someone wearing a black mask could be seen hanging out the back driver’s side window and continuing to fire shots back at the Mercedes. The Charger and the Audi then speed off south on I-95.
The driver of the Mercedes was shot once, but he survived. A woman riding in the passenger seat suffered glass-break injuries as well. Bullet holes were found on the passenger side, the rear, the front, the hood, the front windshield, the interior and the engine block.
Investigators said they found about 25 spent 7.62 caliber shell casings at the scene from two different high-powered guns.
According to cellphone location data, phones belonging to Hatcher and Toney were at the scene of the shooting at the time the shots were fired.
The next day, Hatcher and Toney texted each other and agreed that Toney needed to ditch his phone and delete his iCloud, according to evidence.
Investigators said two other people were in the Charger when the shooting happened, but it’s unclear if they have been arrested.
Arrests of brothers
In February of this year, about four months after the highway shooting, Hatcher was taken into custody and charged with conspiracy to straw-purchase firearms and making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm.
In August of this year, Hatcher was indicted on those charges and also on charges of aiding and abetting others to fire a weapon into a group of people with the intent to injure, conspiring to distribute 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana, conspiring to commit money laundering, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
If convicted on all counts, Hatcher faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 20 years imprisonment, up to two life sentences, plus 115 years.
In June of this year, with Hatcher already in custody, federal agents said they were able to secure a criminal complaint for Toney for his role in the DTO drug conspiracy.
Agents tried to arrest Toney a month later but investigators said he led agents on a high-speed chase through populated areas of Jacksonville.
Using Hatcher’s jail calls, agents said they learned Toney knew he had pending federal charges and was hiding out in Gainesville.
On July 8, agents learned that Toney had returned to Jacksonville, and were able to arrest him.
Toney pleaded guilty last week to federal charges of conspiring to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana, committing a drive-by shooting in furtherance of a major drug offense, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He now faces a minimum mandatory penalty of 15 years, up to life imprisonment, plus 45 years. His sentencing date hasn’t been set.
Hatcher’s case is pending, and he is presumed innocent until proven guilty. His jury trial is set for Feb. 3, 2025.
