BECKLEY, WV—United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced today that four defendants were sentenced in federal court in Beckley on heroin charges. Douglas Edward Morris, 43, of Beckley, was sentenced to seven years in prison, and Tommy Ray Prater II, 34, of Shady Spring, West Virginia was sentenced to five years in prison. The two had pled guilty to traveling in interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity, admitting that in April of 2013 they traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to obtain heroin that they later sold in the Shady Spring area. During about 10 weeks in 2013, Morris and Prater obtained about thousands of heroin stamps in New Jersey. Morris also pled guilty to a felony possession of heroin charge related to the heroin obtained in New Jersey. Morris and Prater were investigated by the West Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Christopher Miller, 32, of Alderson, was sentenced to ten months in prison for distribution of heroin. He pled guilty on June 25, 2014, and admitted that on August 14, 2013, he sold heroin to a confidential informant in Alderson, West Virginia. He further admitted that he sold a total of about 2.8 grams of heroin in the several transactions. Tiffany Rose Arbogast, 24, of Buckeye, was sentenced to six months in prison for distribution of heroin. She pled guilty on July 9, 2014, admitting that on December 15, 2013, she sold heroin to a confidential informant in Lewisburg. She also admitted that she was involved in distributing a total of between five and ten grams of heroin. Miller and Arbogast were investigated by the Greenbrier Valley Drug and Violent Crime Task Force as part of the Greenbrier Heroin and Pill Initiative.

The case is being prosecuted as 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 and heroin. 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 and heroin in communities across the Southern District. Assistant United States Attorney John File handled the prosecution of these cases.