Cedar Rapids Drug Trafficker Sentenced to Federal Prison

A man who sold methamphetamine and unlawfully possessed a firearm was sentenced today to more than 14 years in federal prison.

Julius Anthony Montgomery, age 39, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an April 17, 2024 guilty plea to distribution of a controlled substance following a conviction for a prior serious drug felony.

Evidence at the sentencing hearing demonstrated that four times in January 2023, Montgomery sold methamphetamine.  On January 26, 2023, law enforcement officers searched his home in Cedar Rapids.  Montgomery, another adult, and six minor children were home at the time.  When Montgomery realized that law enforcement officers had arrived, he tried to escape out the upstairs window with a firearm.  Ultimately, he surrendered to officers.  Inside his house and car, officers found over seven pounds of ice methamphetamine, his firearm, and over $2,000 in drug proceeds.  Montgomery has prior federal felony convictions for conspiracy to distribute marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school after having been convicted of a felony drug offense, and for possession of ammunition by a felon and drug user.  

Montgomery was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.  Montgomery was sentenced to 169 months’ imprisonment and must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.

On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

Montgomery 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 Devra T. Hake and was investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program of the United States Department of Justice through a cooperative effort of the Cedar Rapids Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the Iowa Department of Public Safety Division of Narcotics Enforcement, and the United States Probation for the Northern District of Iowa.  

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 23-CR-44.

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