Nearly two months after 19 individuals were charged in a federal drug trafficking investigation, 13 have entered guilty pleas in federal court, and a Searcy County woman is believed to be the top distributor. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 62-year-old Patricia Gayle Lewis-Zubkin of St. Joe pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of conspiracy to distribute methampetamine before U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III in Fort Smith, and she could be sentenced to up to 20 years in a prison and fined one million dollars. The pleas come after 15 individuals were arrested in Baxter, Searcy, Boone, Newton, Benton and Washington Counties in Arkansas and the states of Missouri and Oklahoma.
Lewis-Zubkin was also charged with three counts of distribution of 50 grams or more of the drugs, but the government will dismiss those counts at sentencing as part of the plea agreement. She is expected to be sentenced in six to eight weeks.
Lewis-Zubkin said in the agreement her son, 40-year-old Jason Lee Lewis of St. Joseph, Missouri, was stopped in Oklahoma in early February. Over six pounds of methamphetamine was discovered in Lewis’s car, and he told authorities most of it was to be delivered to his mother. FBI agents questioned Lewis-Zubkin the next day, and she admitted receiving methamphetamine at $8,000 per pound from a supplier in Oklahoma. Others entering into plea agreements said they would go to Lewis-Zubkin for methamphetamine, and they would later sell it themselves.
Among the defendants entering guilty pleas, several are area residents. James Montgomery Suggs, 26-year-old James Wesley Phillips, Lorene Latham Phillips, 44-year-old Phillip Eugene Greenhaw, 61-year-old Jackie Bruce Veach and Sarah Jane Veach, all of Harrison, and 30-year-old Megan Diane Hersh of Diamond City pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. In addition, Jessie Paul Farmer, 34-year-old Dammon Wayne Chariton and 56-year-old Carl Wayne Chariton, all of Harrison, each entered their pleas to two counts of using a cellphone for methamphetamine distribution.
After her arrest in October, Lewis-Zubkin told authorities she was also supplied methamphetamine by Juan Delacruz Albarran at $2,000 per pound. Albarran, Juan Ramirez Vargas and Joseph Macormick Elder are all scheduled to go on trial in March.
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