BATON ROUGE, LA - Acting United States Attorney Corey Amundson announced that Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson has sentenced four defendants - two from Baton Rouge and two from California - to federal prison terms for their roles in a drug-trafficking conspiracy involving shipments of heroin from California to Baton Rouge. Six other defendants were previously sentenced in this matter.
The defendants sentenced yesterday (listed below) had been convicted of conspiring to distribute significant amounts of heroin that had been pressed to resemble oxycodone pills. The heroin had been pressed into pills while in California and then shipped into the Baton Rouge area for distribution. By disguising heroin as oxycodone, the traffickers sought the higher street price paid for oxycodone.
This heroin-trafficking operation was identified as part of a substantial heroin-trafficking and money laundering conspiracy investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s Tactical Diversion Squad and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with assistance from the Louisiana State Police, East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Baton Rouge Police Department.
The following defendants were sentenced yesterday for their individual roles in this heroin-trafficking conspiracy:
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Logan Brannon, age 32, of Newport Beach, California, pled guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin, distributing heroin, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. His sentence included a period of imprisonment of 10 years and forfeiture of no less than $174,700.
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Aaron Lambert, age 34, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pled guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin and money laundering. His sentence included a period of imprisonment of 6 years and forfeiture of $125,700.
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Justin Scott, age 34, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pled guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin. His sentence included a period of imprisonment of 71 months years and forfeiture of $8,304.
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Efrain Barajas, age 28, of Hesperia, California, pled guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin. His sentence included a period of imprisonment of 55 months and forfeiture of $9,000.
Acting U.S. Attorney Amundson stated, “Our nation’s opioid crisis demands a strong response on all fronts and from all angles. Aggressively investigating and prosecuting heroin traffickers is one such front. The United States Attorney’s Office will continue to work with the DEA, IRS-CI, and our many other excellent federal, state, and local partners to take the fight to the traffickers using every legal tool at our disposal. Dismantling this group is an important step, and I commend the hard work and dedication by the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who handled this matter."
“With the sentencing of these individuals, DEA and its federal, state, and local law enforcement partners have taken down an organization responsible for distributing large quantities of heroin purported to be prescription drugs in the Middle District of Louisiana. Heroin is a destructive poison that threatens the health and safety of our communities. We will continue to work together to target criminal organizations to ensure that drug traffickers are held responsible for the harm they cause," said DEA Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Brad L. Byerley.
Jerome R. McDuffie, Special Agent-in-Charge, IRS - Criminal Investigation, stated, “Tracing the complex monetary transactions involved in the trafficking of illegal drugs is the highly specialized work of our IRS Special Agents. The evidence of the financial investigation supports the money laundering violations, and, perhaps most importantly, serves to document the criminal intent of those individuals charged. The financials also support the forfeiture of significant assets as well as the subsequent dismantling of these criminal organizations. We are committed to serving the citizens of our communities and our federal partners, and will continue to strengthen our role in these investigations."
This matter was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Paul L. Pugliese and Frederick A. Menner, Jr.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
