{"id":204162,"date":"2026-03-04T17:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204162\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T17:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:36:06","slug":"man-who-flew-cocaine-from-california-to-bessemer-on-private-plane-pleads-guilty-to-reduced-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204162\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who flew cocaine from California to Bessemer on private plane pleads guilty to reduced charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC<\/a>) – One of two men arrested at the Bessemer Airport after flying 3 kilograms of cocaine across the country on a private plane has agreed to plead guilty to a reduced federal charge.<\/p>\n

Jaydon Cade Basi signed a plea agreement Feb. 17 in which he agreed to plead guilty to misprision of felony \u2014 knowingly concealing a federal crime \u2014 in exchange for the dismissal of the original charges against him. Misprision of felony carries a maximum sentence of three years in federal prison.<\/p>\n

The plea deal is the latest development in a case <\/a>that began when FBI agents say a California biker gang member named Atavien Stephen Whitesell offered to fly cocaine to Alabama on a private plane.<\/p>\n

What the plea agreement says<\/p>\n

According to the plea agreement, the FBI began investigating Whitesell in February 2025 after a confidential source told agents Whitesell could supply kilograms of cocaine and firearms for sale in the Northern District of Alabama. Whitesell told the source he had a friend who was a pilot and could fly the drugs to Alabama.<\/p>\n

On July 12, 2025, an undercover agent and the confidential source met Whitesell in Orange County, California. The group traveled to a shopping center parking lot in Tustin, California, where Basi and his cousin, Jeffrey Mason Baker, arrived on foot and got into the undercover agent\u2019s vehicle. A third party arrived separately and completed the exchange \u2014 three kilograms of cocaine for $60,000.<\/p>\n

The following morning, on July 13, the undercover agent drove the confidential source to Redlands Airport in California, where Baker and Basi were waiting. The cocaine was loaded onto the plane along with the personal belongings of the passengers, and the plane took off at approximately 8:20 a.m. Pacific time.<\/p>\n

A 36-hour flight across the country<\/p>\n

Law enforcement followed the plane as it traveled east, stopping eight times over 36 hours to refuel or avoid weather. The plane touched down in Arizona, twice in New Mexico, twice in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi before landing at the Bessemer Municipal Airport at 11:29 p.m. on July 14, 2025.<\/p>\n

Agents arrested Basi, Baker, and the confidential source upon landing and recovered the cocaine. Lab tests later confirmed the packages contained 2,994.1 grams of a substance at 86% purity, yielding 2,574.9 grams of pure cocaine hydrochloride.<\/p>\n

The plea<\/p>\n

The plea agreement states that Basi witnessed the drug exchange on July 12, traveled with the cocaine for nearly 36 hours, and at no point alerted law enforcement. In exchange for his guilty plea to misprision of felony, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the two original counts against Basi in the earlier case. No sentencing date was listed in the agreement.<\/p>\n

WBRC previously reported <\/a>that federal prosecutors said Basi helped arrange the cocaine sale and accompanied the drugs on the cross-country flight in a 1968 Beechcraft piloted by Baker.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 WBRC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – One of two men arrested at the Bessemer Airport after flying 3 kilograms of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[94569,94566,7,9,8,7268,94567,94568,72000,94565,100,46035,62763],"class_list":["post-204162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-atavien-stephen-whitesell","tag-bessemer-airport-cocaine-arrest-federal-charges","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-cocaine","tag-cocaine-smuggling-private-plane-alabama","tag-fbi-cocaine-investigation-california-alabama","tag-fox6","tag-jaydon-basi-plea-deal-cocaine-alabama","tag-news","tag-plea-agreement","tag-wbrc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}