West Monroe Drug Trafficker Punished After Fentanyl and Other Drugs Found at Stash House

SHREVEPORT, La. (KPEL News) - A West Monroe man found to be dealing all sorts of illegal drugs across Louisiana and Texas will be spending the next two decades behind bars.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Shreveport says 50-year-old Paul Anthony Lewis had a stash house where agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Metro Narcotics Unit of Ouachita Parish found large quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, cocaine base also known as crack cocaine, and promethazine inside. Lewis used his telephone to negotiate drug trafficking transactions with unindicted co-conspirators in Texas and in the Western District of Louisiana.

“The choices of this defendant to continue to possess and distribute a buffet of illegal substances, even after having spent time in federal prison before, has resulted in him now spending the later years of his life behind bars,” said U.S. Attorney Brandon Br. Brown. “We continue to stand by our commitment to make it a priority in the Western District of Louisiana to have zero tolerance for those who choose to sell narcotics, especially the most dangerous narcotic of all, fentanyl.”

A jury convicted Lewis of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, cocaine base, and fentanyl; and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, cocaine base, and fentanyl.

Lewis has already spent time behind bars after being sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison in 2001 on a federal conviction for possession with intent to distribute cocaine base in another case investigated by the DEA.

Now, Lewis faces a 20-year sentence handed down by United States District Judge David C. Joseph.