A 41-year-old Fairbanks man was sentenced Monday in federal court to nearly five years in prison for possession and intent to distribute six ounces of cocaine, but another case involving drug sales statewide could earn him additional time.
U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline sentenced Etienne Devoe to four years and 11 months of prison time, three years of probation and fined him $2,240, the amount of cash authorities found packed inside a duffel bag along with plastic baggies filled with the schedule-II drug when Devoe was arrested.
A Fairbanks jury convicted the local man in May, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's office.
Law enforcement officials served a search warrant on a Fairbanks residence in February 2012, though they intended to bust someone else on a separate federal indictment, the release said.
In a downstairs bedroom of the Wood River Drive home, authorities discovered Devoe and a woman. Next to the bed Devoe had been sleeping in was a duffel bag with six baggies of single ounces of cocaine, according to a federal trial brief. Also inside the bag were three rolls of cash, a wallet with his ID and a recently filled-out application for Planet Fitness.
The drug is often sold in ounces, the affidavit says.
Devoe has another federal trial scheduled for February 2015. He is charged in a separate matter as a member of a large-scale drug conspiracy. That case involves Steven Nicholas Taylor, aka "Louis V" or "Nicky," and 10 other defendants.
The government is charging them with conspiracy to sell about 110 pounds of cocaine statewide, according to federal court records. The drugs are said to have come from Washington state and Las Vegas.
Federal informants told detectives that Taylor was a large-scale cocaine and heroin dealer who operated out of the Seattle area. One informant said he owned a mansion near Washington Lake, which authorities confirmed, the court records say.
Devoe is also alleged to have aided the spread of the drugs in Interior Alaska.
At the sentencing Monday, judge Beistline noted the defendant's negative impact to the Interior community -- and not just from dealing drugs. He "noted that the defendant is the father of eight children with six different mothers and that the defendant's long history of convictions for domestic violence was part of a dysfunctional cycle," the news release says.
The judge said Devoe was also a danger to Fairbanks. In June 2013, he was inside a home that had seven shots fired at it during a drive-by shooting.