OAKLAND -- Two men convicted of selling crack cocaine outside an Oakland elementary school were sentenced to 21 months in prison, attorneys said.

Oakland residents Adell Burrell, 26, and Antwon Graham, 24, pleaded guilty June 27 to selling crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of St. Andrew's Baptist Missionary Elementary School and Kindergarten, and were sentenced earlier this month

On Nov. 2, 2012, Oakland police outfitted a confidential source with audio and video recording devices to perform a "controlled buy," and watched and listened as the informant bought .34 grams of crack for $20 from Graham in the 700 block of Sycamore Street, court documents show. Three days later, an undercover officer witnessed Burrell and Graham loitering at the same location, and watched Burrell repeatedly handing off sandwich bags filled with the drug, as well as stashing them and pulling them from a nearby car.

Both men were indicted by a federal grand jury Mar. 21 and arrested in April.

Burrell told investigators he had supported himself by selling crack since 2005, when he was 18 years old, and attorneys argued that neither legal consequences nor "getting shot" would deter him from dealing drugs. Court filings also show that Graham had been arrested multiple times on drug and weapons charges since he was 19 in 2009, and that he told his attorney that he "felt a great amount of pressure to be a provider for his family."

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag argued in a sentencing motion that the men "had no qualms about dealing drugs near a kindergarten, which is around the corner from where they were dealing."

Each man was also sentenced to six years of supervised release after they are released from prison.
