Memphis Man Receives Significant Sentence for Selling Fentanyl and Firearms to Undercover ATF Agents

Memphis, TN – A Memphis man has been sentenced to 144 months of imprisonment for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime.  Reagan Fondren, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced the sentence today.

According to information presented in court, during the summer of 2023, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) received information that a person later identified as Adrian Seymour, 38, was distributing large amounts of fentanyl in the Memphis area.  On August 15, 2023, special agents with the ATF, acting in an undercover capacity, purchased approximately 1,000 fentanyl pills from Seymour for $5,000.  On September 19, 2023, special agents with the ATF, acting in an undercover capacity, purchased two firearms and approximately one hundred fentanyl pills from Seymour for $1,000.  

Seymour was arrested by ATF special agents and was charged by criminal complaint in federal court in the Western District of Tennessee on October 5, 2023.  He was indicted by a federal grand jury in a seven-count indictment on November 14, 2023.

On August 13, 2024, Seymour entered a plea of guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute forty grams or more of a mixture or substance containing fentanyl, one count of possession with intent to distribute a mixture or substance containing fentanyl, and one count of carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime.

On March 19, 2025, Senior United States District Court Judge John T. Fowlkes sentenced Seymour to 144 months of incarceration with a four-year period of supervised release to follow.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was investigated by the Memphis Field Office of the ATF and the Shelby County Multi-Agency Gang Unit.  The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Nashville laboratory assisted in this investigation.

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is committed to protecting our communities from gun violence and, through collaboration with our law enforcement partners, to identify, investigate and prosecute those armed and violent individuals in an effort to take crime guns out of the hands of criminals. The work done in this case exemplifies ATF’s mission to protect the public and reduce gun related crime by taking dangerous firearms and narcotics off the street and to hold those persons accountable for their lawless actions,” said Jason Stankiewicz, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, Nashville Field Division.

Acting U.S. Attorney Fondren thanked Assistant United States Attorney Bryce H. Phillips who prosecuted this case, as well as the law enforcement partners who investigated the case.  

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For more information, please contact the media relations team at USATNW.Media@usdoj.gov. Follow the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Facebook or on X at @WDTNNews for office news and updates.