BOSTON - A New Bedford man with a long criminal history was sentenced today in federal court for multiple counts of distributing crack cocaine and retaliating against a government informant.
Daniel Smith, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns to thirteen years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of cocaine base, one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, and one count of retaliating against a government witness.
Had the case proceeded to trial the Government’s evidence would have proven that Smith sold two “8-balls” of crack cocaine to an individual cooperating with the government in May 2008. These sales were controlled, monitored, and recorded by federal agents. In June 2008, law enforcement agents seized twenty-one bags of crack cocaine when they executed a search warrant at Smith’s apartment. Later, Smith learned that the person to whom he had sold crack in May was cooperating with the government. In September 2008, he left that individual a threatening message in which Smith said, among other things, that he was “gonna bust [the individual’s] f—ing face in . . . .” After he was arrested, Smith admitted that he had been dealing drugs in New Bedford for years and that he had threatened the cooperating witness because he was “pissed that he was a f—ing rat.”
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Guy Thomas, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and New Bedford Police Chief David A. Provencher made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric P. Christofferson of Ortiz’s Major Crimes Unit.
