Dubuque Man Sentenced to 20 Years’ Prison for Meth Trafficking and Money Laundering

A man who trafficked at least 50 pounds of methamphetamine in the Dubuque, Iowa, area was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in federal prison.

Derek Richard Rath, age 35, from Dubuque, received the prison term after an August 23, 2018, guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine near a school and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Court documents and evidence presented at the sentencing hearing established that in June 2016, Rath obtained the phone number of codefendant Anthony Robert McCarron in Phoenix.  Shortly after, Rath and McCarron agreed that Rath would pay McCarron to ship packages of ice methamphetamine to several addresses in Dubuque.  McCarron mailed at least 50 pounds of methamphetamine to Rath between July 2016 to July 2017.

Rath paid for the methamphetamine by mailing packages of cash to McCarron.  In all, Rath and McCarron mailed at least 56 packages, sometimes using aliases on the shipping labels.  They also wired thousands of dollars to each other with MoneyGram, Western Union, and Walmart2Walmart.

Rath was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand to 240 months’ imprisonment.  He must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.  Rath is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Drew O. Inman and investigated by the Dubuque Drug Task Force, the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.  The case file number is 17-CR-1042-LTS.

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