CEDAR RAPIDS – An Iowa man who was selling fentanyl while he was on federal supervised release was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison.
Anthony Laveal Allen, age 26, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after a July 6, 2023 guilty plea to one count of distribution of a controlled substance.
Evidence at the plea and sentencing hearings showed that, on January 12, 2023, law enforcement conducted an undercover operation and purchased pills from Allen that contained fentanyl. Allen has a prior federal conviction for possession of a firearm as a felon from 2017, and he was serving a term of supervised release when he committed the instant offense.
Allen was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge Linda R. Reade. Allen was sentenced to a total sentence of 39 months’ imprisonment comprised of 15 months for the new crime and a consecutive sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment for the supervised release violation. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Allen is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Adam J. Vander Stoep and was investigated as part of the Northern Iowa Heroin Initiative and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program of the United States Department of Justice through a cooperative effort of the Johnson County Drug Task Force and the Cedar Rapids Police Department. The Johnson County Drug Task Force consists of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, the Iowa City Police Department, the Coralville Police Department, the North Liberty Police Department, the University of Iowa Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement.
