News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2011
Contact: SA Will Taylor
Number: 312-886-2597

Twenty-Year Sentencing for Last of 11 Defendants in Evansville Cocaine Trafficking Ring

AUG 12 -- INDIANAPOLIS – Joseph H. Hogsett, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, and Jack Riley, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced the sentencing of the last defendant in a federal cocaine trafficking conspiracy in United States District Court in Evansville. Lamar Duerson, 32, was sentenced on August 10, 2011 to 20 years imprisonment. Duerson was the last of 11 persons charged by federal indictment in 2010. This brings to a close the investigation and prosecution of a group responsible for the trafficking of large amounts of cocaine between Chicago and Evansville.

Sentences handed down by the United States District Court Chief Judge Richard L. Young have included:

Kelly Shidler, sentenced to 132 months imprisonment

Michael Davis, sentenced to 120 months imprisonment

Julius Wilbourn, sentenced 240 months imprisonment

Laron Seales, sentenced to 240 months imprisonment

Lamar Duerson, sentenced to 240 months imprisonment

Andre King, sentenced to 48 months imprisonment

Melvin Collier, sentenced to 48 months imprisonment

Amber Powell, sentenced to 30 months imprisonment

Three additional defendants were sentenced to probation for their roles in the conspiracy.

“The DEA casts a wide net of drug law enforcement expertise to successfully combat drug trafficking across the United States. This group of individuals responsible for obtaining cocaine in Illinois for distribution in Indiana has been thwarted,â€