Tuesday, December 24, 2002
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A New Castle man and his cousin's former girlfriend will spend at least 10 years in federal prison for their roles in a cocaine ring that stretched along the East Coast from Pennsylvania to Florida, and into Michigan and Texas.
Demetris McKnight, 26, of New Castle was sentenced to 19 years, 7 months in prison, and LaShawna Smith, 30, of Buffalo, N.Y., was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors said McKnight and Smith were among at least seven people who took part in the cocaine ring from 1994 to 1999. The ring funneled cocaine from Houston and Miami to New Castle and Detroit.
Prosecutors said McKnight told Drug Enforcement Administration agents he was an enforcer for his cousin, Bruce McKnight, who recently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Smith -- Bruce McKnight's former girlfriend -- acted as a courier, carrying money and drugs between Pennsylvania and Miami, prosecutors said. She was arrested in 1997 while on a bus trip to Miami to buy $72,000 worth of cocaine.