A Pottsville man was sentenced to 8 years in federal prison on meth trafficking charges.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, District Judge Malachy Mannion handed down that sentence to Allateef Alkamil Ali-White, 43, of Pottsville, on Tuesday.
White will have to serve an additional 3 years on supervised release once the prison term expires.
In 2022, White conspired to distribute more than 5 pounds of a substance containing methamphetamine, which he was supposed to get in the mail from a source in California.
The package containing the met was intercepted en route to White in Pottsville, the US Attorney’s Office says. Court records show this package was caught by Pennsylvania State Police’s Central Interdiction Unit at a UPS facility in Dauphin County.
That suspicious package was a Staples Medium box that weighed about 7 pounds. It had been addressed to James White, at 329 E. Arch St. in Pottsville. The sender was listed as Jason Mendez. It was sent “Next Day Air” from a UPS Store in Bellflower, California.
The package drew suspicion from authorities because it came from California and that it was sent from an address not linked to the sender, court documents indicate. Further, police had no record of a James White in Pottsville and the phone number from the sender didn’t match a Jason Mendez in California. That’s the information authorities used to get a search warrant on the package.
When the package was intercepted in Dauphin County, police say they found five separately wrapped packages, each containing about a pound of methamphetamine.
Police then replaced the real meth inside the package with what they call “sham” narcotics and allowed it to continue on to Pottsville with a mobile tracing device attached.
On July 27, 2022, State Police were conducting a surveillance operation on the E. Arch St. address in Pottsville where the package was to be delivered. That’s where they saw White “pacing the street” apparently waiting for its delivery. White apparently went to the porch at 329 E. Arch St. and waited for about a half-hour before pacing the street again.
Eventually, an officer dropped off the package at that address. That’s when White came to retrieve it, coming across the street from his residence at 328 E. Arch St. He picked up the package and returned to his home with it.
White attempted to argue that the interception of the package was illegal and that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy but that was unsuccessful.
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