From “Posh luxury” to prison: Chicago kingpin sentenced for Madison cocaine shipments

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – A Chicago man accused of bringing more than 50 kilograms of cocaine into the Madison area over a seven-year span learned his fate Friday when he was sentenced in federal court.

Up until recently, the life of William Agee was one filled with expensive cars, plush homes, and all kinds of designer clothes and accessories, federal prosecutors pointed out in a statement revealing his sentence. Now, the man they described as “the undisputed leader of a large-scale drug trafficking organization” will trade all that for 15 years behind bars in a federal prison.

In January, Agee, 36, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, the Justice Dept. explained.

Chief U.S. Judge James Peterson handed down his sentence Friday, telling Agee he deserved the decade-and-a-half long sentence because of the massive amount of cocaine his operation brought into Wisconsin, the DOJ statement continued. Peterson highlighted the defendant’s lifestyle and told Agee it was all funded by the illnesses of other people.

Federal prosecutors detailed some of the items officers found when they raided Agee’s Chicago penthouse in December 2020, including a Patek Phillipe watch, a diamond bracelet, a diamond necklace, and diamond earrings. They valued those four pieces of jewelry at nearly a half-million dollars. In the building’s parking garage were the 2019 Rolls Royce SUV and a 2020 BMW M8 he owned, they added.

The Justice Dept. statement included accounts from three women who told investigators about their role in moving cocaine from the Windy City to Madison on a regular basis. The first source claimed she started making runs, carrying a kilogram each time, twice a month from around 2014 until her arrest in May 2018.

A second woman indicated she started working for Agee sometime in 2018 and was moving a kilogram into Madison every week in 2019 and 2020. According to her account, prosecutors noted, Agee would micromanage nearly every step of her trip, telling her how fast to drive, what lane to use, and what to do if she was stopped by police. When she reached the Wisconsin capital, the woman explained she would call Agee to find out where to take it.

Then, in November 2020, she was stopped by Madison Police Department officers who discovered the cocaine in her rental car, federal prosecutors said. The Justice Dept. reported having surveillance video showing Agee putting a bag in her vehicle outside of his apartment building earlier in the day. Its statement noted she had only been in Chicago for less than a half-hour.

Finally, a third woman told investigators about being on the other end of the deliveries. She said she would take the shipments as they arrived in Madison.

According to the Justice Dept., all three women’s accounts matched up and prosecutors were able to align that with telephone calls they intercepted and surveillance information.

Agee was not the only target of this investigation, the statement added. In all, eight people have been charged and pleaded guilty in connection with Agee’s operation.

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