Jacquelyn Michelle Moss, 39, of Claremont, was sentenced to serve six to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to trafficking opium/heroin by possession and possession of methamphetamine during Catawba County Superior Court on Thursday, April 3, 2025.
The Honorable Karen Eady Williams, Superior Court Judge from Mecklenburg County, imposed terms of the sentence after Moss entered the guilty plea.
She also will have to pay a mandatory fine in the amount of $500,000 for the trafficking conviction.
The defendant will serve her period of incarceration in custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.
Moss was the passenger in a vehicle during a traffic stop on February 16, 2024. During the stop, Hickory Police officers saw a smoking pipe in plain view and made a search of the vehicle. The defendant told officers that she had a substance inside her. A subsequent search revealed a substance that was sent to the State Crime Lab and determined to be a trafficking amount of fentanyl.
Moss was the driver of a vehicle that was stopped on May 28, 2022. During the stop, a Catawba County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit alerted to drugs in the vehicle. During a search, methamphetamine was found inside the defendant’s bra.
Dylan Cassidy investigated the trafficking case for Hickory Police Department. Samuel Helms was the lead investigator for the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant District Attorney Melanie Earles prosecuted the matter for the State with aid from Legal Assistant Jordan Arney.