A Prichard man who admitted his role in a string of pharmacy robberies and burglaries across the Mobile area now wants to take back his plea, and a federal judge has set a hearing on the request. Reginald Jejuan Howell pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute drugs, robbery, and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence — and then, within days, moved to withdraw from the plea agreement his attorney had negotiated.
The rapid reversal sent the case down an unusual procedural path. A judge set a July 29 hearing to consider Howell’s request, and the outcome will determine whether the case proceeds to sentencing on the guilty plea or returns to the pretrial track with the original charges back in play.
Withdrawing a guilty plea after admitting guilt is not a matter of simply changing one’s mind. Federal courts allow it only for a “fair and just reason,” and judges weigh the motion against the government’s reliance on the plea, the stage of the proceedings, and whether the defendant understood what he was agreeing to when he pleaded. The July 29 hearing will put those questions before the court, with prosecutors arguing to hold Howell to the agreement and the defense arguing to release him from it.
Narrow Path to Appeal
Under the agreement Howell signed, he gave up most appeal rights — a standard feature of federal plea deals that trades the defendant’s right to challenge the outcome for the certainty of a negotiated resolution. The exceptions are narrow: Howell could appeal if the judge imposes a sentence longer than the law allows, or above the advisory sentencing guidelines, or on a claim that his lawyer was ineffective.
Those carve-outs preserve the most fundamental protections — the right not to be sentenced beyond the statutory maximum and the right to competent counsel — while surrendering the broader ability to second-guess sentencing decisions within the guidelines range. It is precisely because those rights were waived that the withdrawal motion matters: if the plea stands, Howell’s realistic avenues to challenge his punishment become very limited.
Sentencing had not yet occurred and was scheduled for November, giving the court a defined window to resolve the withdrawal question. If the motion is granted, the case resets toward trial or a new plea negotiation; if it is denied, sentencing proceeds as planned in November.
The Alleged Crime Spree
Court records allege Howell recruited others to help him steal money and drugs from five pharmacies across the Mobile area in a spree stretching from late 2016 into 2018. The targets were retail pharmacy locations selected, prosecutors say, for the controlled substances stocked on their shelves: the Walmart on Dawes Road in October 2016; the Walgreens on Moffett Road in Semmes in May 2017; the Walgreens on Cottage Hill Road in July 2017; the Walgreens on Government Street later that same day; and the Cottage Hill Road Walgreens again in January 2018.
The pattern — two Walgreens locations hit twice, and two pharmacies struck in a single day — illustrates the operational logic behind the alleged conspiracy. Prescription opioids and other controlled substances carry both street value and risk for the pharmacy that stocks them, and federal prosecutors have made pharmacy theft a priority as the opioid crisis made diverted pharmaceuticals a leading entry point into addiction across the Gulf Coast and the country.
Howell’s alleged role as a recruiter adds the conspiracy element that carries its own charge. Rather than facing only the individual robberies, he admitted conspiring to possess with intent to distribute the drugs stolen in them, exposing him to sentencing based on the full scope of the scheme and everyone involved in it.
The Firearm Charge and the Mandatory Seven Years
The charge with the clearest consequences is the firearm count. Brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence carries a mandatory minimum seven-year prison sentence that must run consecutively to — stacked on top of — any sentence for the underlying crimes. That mandatory term cannot be negotiated away at sentencing, probated, or absorbed into a guidelines calculation.
Prosecutors have agreed to recommend a prison term in the middle of the advisory guidelines range for the other offenses, stacked on top of the mandatory seven-year consecutive sentence attached to the gun count. That structure means the final number will be the guidelines sentence plus seven years, no matter where within the range the judge lands.
It is also where the plea agreement’s appeal waiver cuts deepest. Because the seven-year term is mandatory, an appeal attacking the gun count would fail on the law itself, and the waiver blocks challenges to the guidelines portion within the agreed range. The exceptions Howell retained — a sentence above the statutory maximum or above the guidelines, or ineffective assistance of counsel — are the only realistic paths to relief if the plea stands.
What the Withdrawal Hearing Will Weigh
At the July 29 hearing, the defense will need to articulate a fair and just reason for withdrawal. Courts commonly consider whether the defendant has asserted his innocence, whether the government would be prejudiced by reopening the case, whether the plea was knowing and voluntary, and whether the defendant received competent advice before pleading. A defendant who pleads and reverses within days is in a different posture than one who moves years later, but the burden still rests on the defense to show a legitimate basis.
If the motion succeeds, the government regains its full charging leverage — and the mandatory seven-year count remains available either way, since the charge itself, not the plea, carries the mandatory minimum. That reality shapes the strategic calculation behind every withdrawal motion in federal court: the alternative to the agreement is usually a trial with the possibility of additional counts, higher guidelines calculations, and the same mandatory terms attached.
The Government’s Recommended Sentence
Prosecutors’ agreement to recommend the middle of the advisory guidelines range represents the bargain’s value to Howell. The guidelines are calculated from the offenses of conviction and the court’s findings about the scheme’s scope — the number of robberies, the roles of participants, the use of firearms and the quantity of drugs involved. A recommendation anchored at the midpoint gives the defendant a defined landing zone, while trial exposure would leave the calculation to the judge on facts found after an adverse verdict.
The recommendation is advisory in the strict sense: guidelines are no longer binding, and the judge must consider them alongside the sentencing factors Congress set out — the nature of the offense, the defendant’s history, deterrence, and public safety. But the government’s recommendation carries weight, and the middle of the range was the negotiated target the plea was built around.
What Comes Next
The July 29 hearing comes first, and its outcome sets the calendar. A denial moves the case to the November sentencing, where the court will calculate the guidelines, hear from prosecutors and the defense, and impose the term that includes the mandatory seven-year consecutive sentence. A grant sends the case back to the docket as if the plea never happened, with trial likely and the same charges — including the gun count — still pending.
Either way, the case remains a window into how the federal system handles pharmacy robbery in the opioid era: multi-count conspiracies built on a string of retail pharmacy hits across Mobile and Semmes, firearm counts carrying stacked mandatory minimums, and plea agreements that trade most appeal rights for a defined sentencing recommendation. Howell’s effort to undo his guilty plea will test whether the bargain he struck last week holds — and if it does not, what the alternative costs.
The geography of the alleged spree traces the Mobile area’s commercial corridors. The Walmart on Dawes Road sits in west Mobile’s retail belt, the Government Street Walgreens lies along one of the city’s oldest east-west arteries, and the Moffett Road Walgreens in Semmes serves the growing suburbs northwest of the city. The Cottage Hill Road Walgreens was allegedly hit twice, months apart, a repetition that investigators treat as a signature of a repeatable, planned method rather than opportunistic crime.
Pharmacy targets differ fundamentally from bank or convenience store robberies, and the federal response reflects that difference. The merchandise is pharmaceutical-grade controlled substance — painkillers and other prescription drugs that are worth more per ounce than the cash in the register and easier to move than stolen goods. The federal interest grew alongside the opioid epidemic, as stolen and diverted prescription drugs became a pipeline into addiction across Alabama and the nation, and prosecutions like this one are built to reach not just the person at the counter but the organizers who recruit and direct the crews.
That is the significance of the conspiracy charge Howell pleaded to. Conspiracy law holds a defendant accountable for the foreseeable acts of his co-participants, meaning the full five-pharmacy spree can be attributed to him whether or not he personally entered every store. Recruiting others, in the government’s framing, is what converts a series of robberies into an organized scheme — and the sentencing guidelines add enhancement points for organizational role and for the number of thefts in the pattern.
How a Federal Plea Deal Is Built
The structure of Howell’s agreement is typical of federal practice. Plea agreements in the federal system are contracts of a sort: the defendant pleads to specific counts, the government agrees to dismiss or not pursue others and to make sentencing recommendations, and both sides accept the guidelines calculation that follows. The appeal waiver Howell signed is now standard in such agreements, surviving Supreme Court scrutiny and upheld by appeals courts so long as the defendant entered the plea knowingly and the waiver’s scope is clear.
What the agreement cannot do is fix the sentence. The recommendation of a middle-of-the-range term binds the government to argue for it, but the judge makes the final call, and the guidelines range itself is computed at sentencing after the probation office’s presentence report and any objections from the parties. The seven-year mandatory consecutive term for the brandishing count is the one fixed landmark in the landscape.
That structure explains why withdrawal motions are so consequential. Every element of the bargain — dismissed charges, the midpoint recommendation, the agreed guidelines framework — evaporates if the court allows withdrawal, leaving the defendant to face the original charging posture with trial exposure on all counts. Courts know the asymmetry, which is why the fair and just reason standard is applied seriously but not automatically granted.
The November sentencing date will hold if the July 29 hearing goes the government’s way. If it does not, the case returns to the pretrial docket, the alleged five-pharmacy spree returns to litigation, and the mandatory seven-year count — the one number no motion can move — waits for whichever resolution comes next.
