Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – An Ahoskie man was sentenced here on Jan. 19 to 18 years in prison for possessing a firearm while distributing narcotics throughout Hampton Roads.

According to court documents, in or around July 2020, the Newport News Police Department was informed that Marcus Dewayne Smith, 39, was distributing narcotics from various hotels throughout the City of Newport News. In Smith’s hotel room, law enforcement discovered 82 prepackaged glassine packets individually stamped “FIREBALL,” containing a mixture of heroin, fentanyl, and tramadol.

Also in Smith’s room was a distribution amount of cocaine, approximately $8,000 in cash, tools and packaging materials for drug distribution, and two loaded semiautomatic handguns. Smith, a prior convicted felon, is prohibited from possessing firearms.

Smith’s lengthy and violent criminal history over the past two decades qualifies him as a “Career Offender.”

Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Charlie J. Patterson, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Washington Field Division; and Steve R. Drew, Chief of Newport News Police, made the announcement after sentencing by Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Osyf prosecuted the case.