Kewanee Felon Sentenced to Prison for Gun, Drug Crimes

PEORIA, Ill. – U.S. District Judge James E. Shadid today sentenced Dimitri Miles Lopez, 29, of the 600 block of Cole St., Kewanee, Ill., to serve 200 months (16 years, 8 months) in federal prison for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession of a short-barreled shotgun in furtherance of the drug trafficking crime. Lopez has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since he was arrested in December 2015.

On Oct. 19, 2016, Lopez pled guilty to the offenses. According to court documents, when agents with the Illinois State Police Blackhawk Area Task Force executed a search warrant on Dec. 2, 2015, at Lopez’s home, officers found a loaded short-barreled 12-gauge shotgun under the living room couch, a .38 revolver, two baggies that contained methamphetamine and $2,000 in Lopez’s pants pocket. At the time, Lopez was a convicted felon, with a 2011 conviction for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and a 2010 conviction for criminal damage to property.

Lopez was sentenced to 80 months in prison for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute; possession of a short-barreled shotgun, and felon in possession of a firearm. In addition, Lopez was ordered to serve 10 years in prison for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, to be served consecutive to the 80-month sentence.

The charges were investigated by the Illinois State Police Blackhawk Area Task Force, the Kewanee Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney John K Mehochko prosecuted the case in the Rock Island Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois.