MADISON, WIS. - Scott C. Blader, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that Michael Clark, 33, Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson sentenced Clark to 10 years in federal prison. Clark was convicted following a one-day jury trial in U.S. District Court in Madison on May 1, 2018, of possessing 40 grams or more of fentanyl with the intent to distribute.
The evidence presented at trial showed that Clark was found in possession of fentanyl on Oct. 14, 2015. Officers of the Northwest Area Crime Unit executed a search warrant at a room in a hotel in Superior that day, and when they entered the room, Clark was sitting at a table actively packaging a large amount of fentanyl. It was determined that he was in possession of over 80 grams of fentanyl.
During Clark’s arrest, officers found a bag of fentanyl in Clark’s clenched hand. In the room, officers found a scale, a large number of plastic sandwich bags, and 10 additional bags of fentanyl packaged for sale in half-gram quantities.
The sentence imposed by Judge Peterson today will be served consecutively to a 71-month federal prison sentence Clark is serving from a conviction in the Northern District of Illinois in September 2017 for conspiring to distribute fentanyl. Evidence in that case included a Facebook conversation Clark had with an associate, in which Clark described the potency of fentanyl he was distributing in the Duluth, Minnesota area and how it resulted in the deaths of four people.
The charge against Clark was the result of an investigation by the Northwest Area Crime Unit, Lake Superior Drug and Violent Crime Task Force, Superior Police Department, Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, Duluth Police Department, and Hermantown (Minnesota) Police Department. The prosecution of this case is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Darren Halverson and Julie Pfluger.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
