A South Georgia man whom prosecutors call a career criminal has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after being found guilty of trafficking a half-million dollars of cocaine from Atlanta to Albany in 2015, according to the U.S. state’s attorney’s office.
Alfonzo Jamal Lewis, 35, also known as “Pookie,” was convicted Feb. 5 of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
His sentence, handed down last Tuesday, will be followed by 10 years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.
“For more than a decade, despite a ceaseless pattern of criminality, Alfonzo Lewis was a beneficiary of probated sentences and dismissed charges in the state system,” said U.S. Attorney Byung Pak. “My office and the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s HIDTA program are committed to ensuring that drug dealers and traffickers like Lewis are held to account for their crimes.”
Lewis previously served time in prison for aggravated assault, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, according to reports.
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Lewis appeared on police radar in the current case in late 2015 after detectives in Atlanta observed him multiple times purchasing bulk amounts of cocaine and then driving the drugs back to Albany to sell, authorities said in a statement.
Exposed by the surveillance, Lewis was next seen in Decatur, entering and leaving a known drug stash house on Aug. 20, 2015, but police did not move in for an arrest at that time.
Four months later, federal agents spotted Lewis again on Dec. 14, 2015, as he paid a visit to another stash house in East Point.
This time, his trip back to Albany was cut short.
Deputies with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia State Patrol pulled over Lewis for speeding and arrested him after finding 11 pounds of pure cocaine in the backseat.
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A federal grand jury later found enough evidence to bring federal charges against Lewis in Fulton County Superior Court.
“Illegal drugs destined to poison communities in southwest Georgia were stopped by our federal and state law enforcement partners,” said Pak. “Their outstanding work resulted in the seizure of a half-million dollars’ worth of cocaine and a lengthy term of imprisonment for a career drug dealer.”
The operation that took down Lewis was conducted by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in partnership with the Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Monroe Police Department, Albany Police Department and U.S. Marshals Service.
Also crucial to the investigation was the participation of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which is run by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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