Los Angeles drug dealer sentenced to over seven years in Federal prison for methamphetamine crime

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A Los Angeles man was sentenced to seven and a half years in federal prison today for a drug crime, announced Acting United States Attorney Carol Casto. Terry Cunningham, 32, previously pleaded guilty in December 2015 to distribution of methamphetamine.

Cunningham admitted that on July 14, 2015, he shipped a package containing methamphetamine to an undercover Kanawha County Deputy Sheriff working with the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team. After the undercover officer picked up the package, Cunningham provided instructions for making payment for the shipment using MoneyGram. Cunningham went to pick up the MoneyGram payment at a Walmart in Los Angeles, and immediately texted the undercover officer that he had received payment. Agents conducting surveillance in Los Angeles arrested Cunningham after observing him collecting the payment.

The investigation was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team, and the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office. The sentence was imposed by United States District Judge Thomas E. Johnston.

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 illegal drugs in our communities, including the illicit sale and misuse of prescription drugs and heroin. 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 and other drugs in communities across the Southern District.

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