Two Sentenced For Selling Oxycodone In Nitro, West Virginia

Couple busted with hundreds of illegal prescription pills

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Michelle Craig, age 34, and James Bennett, age 44, were both sentenced today in Huntington by Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers to terms of imprisonment of two years nine months and two years, respectively. Craig and Bennett previously plead guilty in August 2013 to aiding and abetting each other in the illegal distribution of oxycodone, a powerful prescription painkiller.  Craig and Bennett admitted that on April 22, 2010, they sold 100 oxycodone tablets for $2,300 to a confidential informant (CI) working with the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (MDENT).  The drug deal took place in the parking lot of a Pilot gas station in Nitro, West Virginia.  In addition to the pills sold to the CI, agents also seized another 66 pills from the defendants’ car and 188 pills from the home the defendants shared in Putnam County, West Virginia.

This case was prosecuted as part of an ongoing effort led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia to combat the illicit sale and misuse of prescription drugs. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, joined by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, is committed to aggressively pursuing and shutting down illegal pill trafficking, eliminating open air drug markets, and curtailing the spread of opiate painkillers.