U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Montana issued the following announcement on Oct. 31.
A Glendive woman who admitted selling methamphetamine and heroin in the Billings community for a Denver dealer was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison and five years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.
Tori Lashawn Smith, 24, pleaded guilty in June to possession with intent to distribute meth.
U.S. District Judge Susan Watters presided.
In court records, the prosecution said that Smith was a lieutenant for Nathan Trujillo, a Denver man who was convicted of drug trafficking crimes and sentenced in June to more than 20 years in federal prison.
When Turjillo was arrested in September 2018, Smith was with him in his vehicle. Law enforcement officers found 429 grams, or slightly less than one pound, of meth in the vehicle. Officers searched Smith’s purse and found two ounces of heroin. Smith later told officers she regularly sold ounce quantities of heroin for Trujillo and also had sold a pound of meth for him. One pound of meth is the equivalent of 3,624 doses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Colin Rubich prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force.
The case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), which is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.
Original source can be found here.
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