Jacksonville Drug Trafficker Receives 11 Years for Fentanyl and Methamphetamine Conspiracy

Jacksonville, Fla. — James Herbert Asberry III, a 39-year-old Jacksonville resident, was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison on May 7, 2026, for conspiring to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine.

U.S. District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger imposed the term in the Middle District of Florida after Asberry pleaded guilty on July 17, 2024. The court also ordered forfeiture of $18,938, the exact amount of cash seized from Asberry at the time of his arrest, which the government identified as proceeds of his drug trafficking.

The sentence directly affects Asberry, who will serve the term in the federal Bureau of Prisons system. Federal sentencing guidelines for fentanyl and methamphetamine conspiracy convictions typically require defendants to serve roughly 85 percent of the imposed term before release eligibility. The $18,938 forfeiture removes liquid assets that could have funded further trafficking activity.

The judgment changes Asberry’s status from pretrial release or detention to immediate federal incarceration. He must report to the designated prison facility once the Bureau of Prisons designates him, a process that normally occurs within weeks of sentencing.

The forfeiture order becomes final upon sentencing and requires transfer of the seized cash to the U.S. Marshals Service for disposition under federal asset-forfeiture rules.

Downstream, the conviction and sentence require the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida to report the outcome to the national Drug Enforcement Administration case-tracking system, which feeds into annual federal drug-trafficking statistics.

The forfeiture deposits will credit the Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund, which finances future law-enforcement operations. Federal probation officers must now prepare post-release supervised release conditions that will govern Asberry for at least three years after his prison term ends.

The case also supplies a concrete sentencing data point for other fentanyl-distribution defendants in the Jacksonville division, where prosecutors have pursued dozens of similar conspiracy cases in the past two years.

This sentencing concludes a prosecution opened before Asberry’s July 2024 guilty plea. The Department of Justice announcement lists U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe as the releasing official. The case was handled in the Middle District of Florida, one of the districts that has recorded repeated fentanyl-related convictions since the drug’s widespread appearance in northeast Florida supply chains beginning in 2019.