Three men convicted of selling crack cocaine have been sentenced to 41 years in prison for leading a major drug-trafficking ring investigated by federal prosecutors in western Arkansas in 2011, according to U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge’s office.
Samuel Garrison, 31, Gregory Lewis, 34, and Marcus Sims, 35, were sentenced this week in a case that has resulted in 190 indictments on 66 defendants.
Garrison, of Texarkana, Texas, was sentenced to 18 years in prions after authorities said he sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant in 2011. The leader of the drug trafficking organization, Garrison was found by authorities to have distributed between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine in the Texarkana area, according to Eldridge’s office.
Lewis, of Texarkana, Ark., was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of distributing crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of a public school. Investigators said Lewis sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant in September 2010 within 1,000 feet of Vera Kilpatrick Elementary School in Texarkana.
Lewis was a supervisor in the drug trafficking organization, authorities said.
Sims, of Chidester, was convicted of distributing crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of public housing and was sentenced this week to eight years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Arkansas. A federal court found Sims sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant within 1,000 feet of the Pinehurst Village public housing facility in Texarkana, Ark.
The drug-trafficking case was investigated by the Bi-State Narcotics Task Force, a group of law enforcement officers from the Texarkana, Ark., Police Department, the Texarkana, Texas, Police Department, the Miller County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI.
