Timothy M. O’Shea, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, has announced that Corvalis Stewart, a 37-year-old resident of Madison, Wisconsin, received a 16-year federal prison sentence. Chief U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson sentenced Stewart for possessing 400 or more grams of fentanyl intended for distribution. After serving his prison term, Stewart will undergo eight years of supervised release. He had pleaded guilty to the charge on September 1, 2024.
The incident dates back to February 8, 2024, when Stewart and his co-defendant Larry Williamson landed a rented Cessna 172 aircraft at Middleton Municipal Airport in Wisconsin. Williamson had rented the plane to fly to Phoenix, Arizona to collect drugs while Stewart was the passenger. Law enforcement officials had been alerted about their flight and suspicious activities in Arizona.
Upon landing around 10:55 p.m., both men exited the aircraft and proceeded to the parking lot where Stewart placed three bags into his vehicle's trunk. Authorities detained them and searched the bags which revealed two containing 19 pounds of methamphetamine and one with approximately 200,000 fentanyl pills known as M30’s or counterfeit Oxycodone pills. This seizure marked Dane County's largest fentanyl bust with an estimated street value of $2 million.
Judge Peterson highlighted that this case involved a “startling quantity of drugs” with fentanyl being a leading cause of overdoses. He noted aggravating factors such as Stewart’s serious criminal history and federal supervision status during the offense alongside planning involvement in the crime.
Stewart has multiple felony convictions including five related to firearms offenses and was under federal supervision for a felon-in-possession conviction at the time of this drug offense. His supervised release was revoked during sentencing where Judge Peterson also imposed an additional two-year concurrent sentence.
Larry Williamson pleaded guilty on June 18, 2024, to possessing over 500 grams of methamphetamine intended for distribution and received a 12-year federal prison sentence on October 31, 2024.
The investigation into Stewart and Williamson was carried out by Homeland Security Investigations along with Dane County Narcotics Task Force and Middleton Police Department assisted by Air Marine Operations Center in Riverside, California. Assistant U.S. Attorney Corey Stephan prosecuted this case.
