Princeton man pleads guilty to federal drug charge

Beckley, W.Va. – United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced today that a Princeton man pled guilty to a drug charge before Senior United States District Judge David A. Faber in federal court in Bluefield.  Lamar Baxter, 39,  pled guilty to using a phone to arrange a drug deal.  Baxter admitted that on November 11, 2014, he used a telephone in Princeton to speak with an informant to arrange a drug deal.  A short time later Baxter sold seven oxycodone pills to the informant.

Baxter faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine when he is sentenced on June 25, 2015.

The case was investigated by the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force and it is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney John File 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 drug trafficking, eliminating open air drug markets, and curtailing the spread of opiate painkillers and heroin in communities across the Southern District.