FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Oct. 17, 2012
MERCER COUNTY MAN SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON FOR ILLEGAL PRESCRIPTION DRUG POSSESSION
BECKLEY, W.Va. – U. S. Attorney Booth Goodwin today announced that a Mercer County man was sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison for illegally possessing prescription drugs. Adrian Alexander Wilson, 33, of Bluefield, previously pleaded guilty in June to possession with intent to distribute a quantity of hydromorphone. Hydromorphone is better known by the powerful prescription painkiller name, Dilaudid.
On January 26, 2011, law enforcement officers found 79 hydromorphone pills and $635 cash in the console of a vehicle in which the defendant was a passenger. Wilson admitted to police that the pills and the money were his. Wilson further admitted that he intended to sell the pills and also admitted that the $635 found by police were proceeds from prior drug sales.
The prosecution was brought as a part of the Bluefield Pill Initiative. The Bluefield Pill Initiative is a collaborative, multi-agency regional law enforcement effort designed to halt prescription drug trafficking in Mercer, McDowell, and Wyoming Counties. The Bluefield Pill Initiative is led by the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force, which includes the West Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation; the Mercer, McDowell and Wyoming County Sheriff’s Departments, and the Bluefield and Princeton Police Departments. Assistant United States Attorneys Miller Bushong and John File are in charge of the prosecutions. The sentence was imposed by United States District Judge Irene C. Berger.
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