BILLINGS -- A Billings woman who admitted heading a large methamphetamine distribution ring after investigators seized six pounds of the drug at her home and another location was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison and five years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said, according to a release from the Montana District Attorney's Office.
Jamie Juwann Ady, 42, also known as Jamie Ady Alatorre, pleaded guilty in October to possession with intent to distribute meth.
U.S. District Judge Susan P. Watters presided.
The prosecution said in court documents that in November 2018, agents with the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force identified a large-scale meth trafficking organization that was bringing meth into Montana. Ady headed this organization and worked with other co-conspirators.
Agents executed a search warrant on Ady's residence and a secondary location in Laurel where Ady stored some of the drugs and seized approximately six pounds of meth. Ady admitted in an interview to being a meth distributor and said that she and another person had just returned from Las Vegas and Phoenix where they picked up four bundles of meth, each containing about 1.5 pounds, from a source. Six pounds of meth is the equivalent of about 21,744 doses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Colin Rubich investigated the case, which was investigated by the Eastern Montana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force and FBI Western Transnational Organized Crime Task Force.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a U.S. Department of Justice initiative to reduce violent crime. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, violent crime in Montana increased by 36% from 2013 to 2018. Through PSN, federal, tribal, state and local law enforcement partners in Montana focus on violent crime driven by methamphetamine trafficking, armed robbers, firearms offenses and violent offenders with outstanding warrants.
