Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Trafficking Fentanyl and Illegally Possessing Firearm in Chicago

CHICAGO — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for trafficking fentanyl and illegally possessing a loaded handgun in Chicago.

ERIC BROWN possessed the drugs and gun on Oct. 19, 2021, near the intersection of North St. Louis Avenue and West Iowa Street in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.  Brown carried a satchel that contained the handgun and 400 pills of a substance that Brown knew included fentanyl.  When Chicago Police officers approached the intersection, Brown attempted to hide the gun by placing it in the wheel well of a nearby car.  The officers recovered the gun, arrested Brown, and discovered the pills in his possession.

Brown, 34, of Chicago, pleaded guilty last year to federal drug and firearm charges.  U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr., imposed the sentence Monday during a hearing in federal court in Chicago.

The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Christopher Amon, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and Larry Snelling, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.  Valuable assistance was provided by the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Drugs, and especially fentanyl, are a scourge to the public health and to law enforcement across the country, and a stain on the community,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alejandro G. Ortega argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.  “The defendant did not think of the people he was harming when he possessed the fentanyl with intent to distribute it; he was only thinking of the profit he would make by selling the drugs.”

Holding illegal firearm possessors accountable through federal prosecution is a centerpiece of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) – the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction strategy.  In the Northern District of Illinois, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and law enforcement partners have deployed the PSN program to attack a broad range of violent crime issues facing the district, particularly firearm offenses.