Fairbanks Man sentenced to prison for drug dealing

Anchorage, Alaska -U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today that a Fairbanks man was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, for conspiracy and aiding the distribution of drugs.

William E. Kaiser, Jr., 52, of Fairbanks, Alaska, was sentenced in Fairbanks on June 21, 2013, by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline, after Kaiser pled guilty to charges that he conspired to distribute marijuana in the Fairbanks area and that he aided others in distributing the drug.  Judge Beistline sentenced Kaiser to 40 months in prison.  The charges arose from the 2012 seizure of a shipment of $40,000 in cash, which Kaiser had sent to his supplier in Oregon in payment for drugs that the supplier had shipped to Fairbanks. 

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Cooper, who prosecuted the case, the facts Kaiser admitted to in court showed that he had an ongoing agreement for the Oregon supplier to ship marijuana to Kaiser or his associates in Fairbanks for $2,500 per pound.  Kaiser sent payments to the supplier in the form of cash proceeds of the sales.  This conspiracy lasted from mid-2011 and until June 2012, and resulted in well over a dozen shipments totaling between 130 and 175 pounds of marijuana.

In 2001, Kaiser had previously been convicted in federal court in Fairbanks of cultivating over 380 marijuana plants and possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.  He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and was on supervised release from that sentence when he committed the current offenses.  Kaiser now faces additional proceedings for violating his supervised release by committing these offenses.   

Ms. Loeffler commends the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Medford, Oregon, Police Department for the investigation of this case.