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Press Release
GREENEVILLE, Tenn.- On Apr. 23, 2013, Roger Tristan Johnson, 34, of Johnson City, Tenn., was sentenced to serve 235 months in prison by the Honorable J. Ronnie Greer, U.S. District Judge.
Johnson pleaded guilty to an August 2010 federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute a quantity of oxycodone pills. Also charged in the conspiracy were Diane Elizabeth Campbell, 27 of Elizabethton, Tenn.; Tommy Thomas Nicholas, 45 of Gray, Tenn.; Joshua Paul Arnett, 26 of Gray, Tenn.; and Austin Tanner Wood, 20 of Sullivan County, Tenn. Arnett was charged with distribution of a quantity of oxycodone pills. Campbell and Nicholas were charged with interstate travel with intent to promote, manage, establish, carry on and facilitate the promotion, management, establishment, or carrying on, of a business enterprise involving narcotics or controlled substances. All have been convicted and are awaiting sentencing.
Johnson admitted that from January 2010 to August 2012, he knowingly, intentionally, and without authority, conspired with at least one other person to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute oxycodone pills, a Schedule II controlled substance in the Eastern District of Tennessee and elsewhere. An organization headed by Johnson employed a number of couriers to transport oxycodone pills from a source in Miami, Fla., to the Eastern District of Tennessee. At the height of this operation, Johnson’s couriers were making multiple trips a week to Florida, purchasing several thousand pills on each trip. The pills were then delivered to Johnson who further distributed the pills to street level dealers. At the time of his arrest Johnson, who had previously been convicted of a felony, was in possession of a loaded .45 caliber handgun.
U.S. Attorney Bill Killian stated, “I want to commend all of those agencies and law enforcement officials who worked together to bring these individuals to justice. It took a joint effort by all agencies involved to achieve this result. "
The indictment and subsequent conviction of Johnson was the result of an investigation conducted by the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department, Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Hampton County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Office, First Judicial District Drug Task Force, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Lampe represented the United States.
The investigation is a result of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s drug supply reduction strategy. OCDETF was established in 1982 to conduct comprehensive, multi-level attacks on major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. Today, OCDETF combines the resources and expertise of its member federal agencies in cooperation with state and local law enforcement. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply.