Mercer County man pleads guilty to Federal drug charge

Bluefield, W.Va. – United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced that a Bluefield man pled guilty in federal court in Bluefield today to a federal drug charge. Steven Andrew Short, 29, pled guilty to using a communication facility to facilitate a felony, admitting that on April 8, 2015, he used a telephone near Rock, West Virginia, to arrange a drug deal with a confidential informant.  Shortly after the phone call, Short sold  hydromorphone to the informant. Short admitted that he had sold more than 1800 hydromorphone pills over a period of time.  He faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced on January 26, 2016

This case was investigated by the Southern Regional Violent Drug and Violent Crime Task Force under the Bluefield Pill Initiative, 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 in communities across the Southern District.  Assistant United States Attorney John File is handling the prosecution.

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