A felon who the Justice Department described as a high-level drug dealer in Alachua County was sentenced Friday to a decade in federal prison.
Charles Strange Jr., 49, of Gainesville, was a high-level dealer of cocaine and the drug ecstasy, shipping as much as 20 pounds of the drugs at once, some of which he imported from China as far back as 2014, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in June to federal drug and weapons charges.
Prosecutors said the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office identified Strange as a kilogram-quantity drug supplier in the area and worked on the investigation with the Drug Enforcement Administration. They determined Strange was working out of a self-storage facility where a sheriff’s dog confirmed twice there were illegal narcotics.
Investigators hid a covert surveillance camera inside the storage unit and saw Strange visit the unit driving a distinctive Dodge Charger sedan. Inside the unit, authorities found more than 60 pounds of a synthetic narcotic known as cathinone, along with a small amount of cocaine.
They also found a .40-caliber pistol, which Strange was prohibited from owning because he had pleaded guilty to federal drug charges in 1998 and spent nearly a decade in prison then.
Strange showed investigators his cellphone, which contained messages he exchanged with contacts in China, which authorities said was the origin of the drugs.
As part of the investigation, a sheriff’s deputy stopped Strange earlier this year after a federal judge had issued a sealed warrant for his arrest. The deputy found small bags of cocaine and ecstasy hidden inside Strange’s pants.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor sentenced Strange to 121 months in prison and a $200 fine. The judge urged the Bureau of Prisons to allow Strange to serve his time behind bars in a federal prison near Gainesville.
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