Missoula Man Receives 55-Month Sentence for Methamphetamine and Fentanyl Trafficking

BILLINGS — A Missoula man who trafficked methamphetamine and fentanyl from Washington to Montana was sentenced to 55 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.

The defendant, identified in the Justice Department release as a Missoula resident, moved the drugs across state lines for distribution in Montana. The sentence was imposed in U.S. District Court in Billings on drug-trafficking charges.

Federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums for fentanyl and methamphetamine offenses dictated the term. The 55-month prison sentence replaces what would have been continued pretrial release or potential flight risk pending trial. Supervised release begins immediately upon completion of the prison term, scheduled to end in late 2029 assuming standard good-time credit.

Downstream, the removal of this trafficker from the supply network for roughly four and a half years forces downstream distributors in Montana to seek new Washington-state sources or shift to other routes. Montana’s U.S. Attorney’s Office must now allocate resources to monitor compliance with the supervised-release conditions after 2029 and to prosecute any new violations.

The case also supplies one additional data point for federal interdiction statistics that Congress and the White House use when setting annual drug-control budgets and grant priorities for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas that include Montana.

This sentencing is one of multiple federal cases brought in the District of Montana in the past 24 months targeting cross-border fentanyl and methamphetamine distribution from Pacific Northwest sources. The Justice Department has pursued similar prosecutions under statutes that carry mandatory minimum sentences for trafficking in Schedule II controlled substances.