News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 2009
In matters prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia:
CHARLESTON DRUG DEALER SENTENCED TO PRISON
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Brian Lamar Vineyard, 37, of Charleston, West Virginia, was sentenced today by United States District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr. to eight years of imprisonment for distributing cocaine base and violating terms of his supervised release for a prior drug-trafficking conviction. Vineyard previously pled guilty on April 7, 2009, admitting to the charges.
The conviction stems from an investigation conducted by the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team. On January 26, 2009, Vineyard sold a quantity of cocaine base for $140 to a confidential informant working at the direction of the Task Force. The deal took place in the men's bathroom at a restaurant in the Charleston Town Center Mall in downtown Charleston. At the time of his arrest, Vineyard was serving a period of supervised release after discharging a nine-year federal sentence imposed in 2000. Judge Copenhaver sentenced Vineyard to seven years for the distribution count, to be followed consecutively by an additional one year for the supervised release violation.