Rayful Edmond, D.C.'s infamous crack cocaine kingpin, moved to halfway house

Federal officials confirmed Thursday that Rayful Edmond III, the prolific drug dealer who helped fuel D.C.’s crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s, has been transferred to a halfway house.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesman said Edmond was moved this week to a “community confinement” facility that is being overseen by the Nashville Residential Reentry Management Office.

Community confinement is either a home confinement or a halfway house, but the BOP said “we do not specify an individual's specific location while in community confinement.”

The 59-year-old Edmond came back on the public radar when a video of him exclaiming “I’m back, better than ever” circulated Wednesday on social media.

Edmond was sentenced to life without parole in 1989 after he was convicted of federal drug crimes.

He continued to sell drugs while behind bars in a federal prison in Pennsylvania until he was caught in 1994.

That’s when Edmond became an informant.

Prosecutors said he helped authorities arrest and convict more than 100 drug dealers for nearly two decades. He helped police close 20 unsolved homicide investigations as well.

Edmond was credited for time served in 2021 after a D.C. federal judge reduced his life sentence down to 20 years because of the “unparalleled magnitude” of the former kingpin's cooperation.

His full 30-year sentence in Pennsylvania related to his prison drug offenses began immediately after that decision.

Last month, a federal judge in Pennsylvania denied Edmond's request to reduce his sentence in light of his extensive cooperation.

The District’s bustling drug trade saw Edmond move close to 400 pounds of cocaine into the nation’s capital each week, according to court documents.

He’s thought to have controlled nearly 60% of the local crack cocaine market from 1985 to 1989.

The cheap, smokable form of cocaine led to crippling addiction among users and fierce competition among rival dealers. Skyrocketing homicides followed crack’s arrival to the city, and the District soon became known as the nation’s “murder capital.”

Edmond was never convicted of a violent crime, but authorities said his hired muscle was tied to almost 30 slayings throughout the District.