Asheville Man Sentenced to 135 Months for Fentanyl Distribution
A U.S. Attorney's Office announcement dated August 14, 2026 says Sadiq Mafia Devoe Jones was sentenced the day before to 135 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
3 reports on this incident · first at Aug 15, 2026, 11:17 a.m. ET
Earlier reports
Aug 15, 2026, 11:22 a.m. ET
Asheville Man Sentenced to 135 Months in Federal Fentanyl Case
A 24-year-old Asheville man has been sentenced in federal court for distributing fentanyl, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina announced on August 14, 2026. The release, which states the sentencing took place the previous day, says Sadiq Mafia Devoe Jones was sentenced to 135 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. The same record describes the term as a "10-year sentence" that "will run at the expiration of his federal probation sentence for violating his probation" — the record's wording on the two figures is not consistent, and it is reproduced here as it stands.
The announcement was made by Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. "Shortly after Jones was released from federal prison he returned to a life of crime and drug dealing," Ferguson said in the release. "Fentanyl kills, and we are committed to eliminating this deadly drug that ravages communities and destroys families."
According to the office's account of court documents and proceedings, law enforcement learned in August 2025 that Jones was part of a drug ring distributing fentanyl, methamphetamine and firearms in Buncombe County, and that he was on federal supervised release for a prior conviction for illegally possessing a firearm. The release says an undercover agent purchased over 139 grams of fentanyl and over 26 grams of methamphetamine from Jones or others working for him on multiple occasions, and that during at least one transaction Jones used a juvenile to sell fentanyl to the undercover agent.
Jones is in federal custody and will be transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation to a facility, the office said. Ferguson thanked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Asheville Police Department, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration for the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hess prosecuted the case, which the office says is part of Operation Take Back America.
Aug 15, 2026, 11:17 a.m. ETFirst report
Asheville Man Sentenced to 135 Months for Distributing Fentanyl, U.S. Attorney's Office Says
A man from Asheville, North Carolina, was sentenced to 135 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for distributing fentanyl, according to a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina on August 14, 2026. The office identifies him as Sadiq Mafia Devoe Jones, 24, and says the sentence was imposed "yesterday." The announcement was made by Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the district.
The release's description of the term is not internally consistent: it states the 135-month sentence, and then states that "Jones's 10-year sentence will run at the expiration of his federal probation sentence for violating his probation." The wording is reproduced here as it appears in the record.
According to the office, court documents and proceedings show that in August 2025 law enforcement learned Jones was part of a drug ring distributing fentanyl, methamphetamine and firearms in Buncombe County, and that he was on federal supervised release for a prior conviction for illegally possessing a firearm. The release says an undercover agent purchased over 139 grams of fentanyl and over 26 grams of methamphetamine from Jones or others working for him on multiple occasions, and that during at least one transaction Jones used a juvenile to sell fentanyl to the agent. "Shortly after Jones was released from federal prison he returned to a life of crime and drug dealing," Ferguson said in the release. "Fentanyl kills, and we are committed to eliminating this deadly drug that ravages communities and destroys families."
The office says Jones is in federal custody and will be transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation to a facility. Ferguson thanked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Asheville Police Department, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration for the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hess of the Asheville office prosecuted the case, which the release says is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative.
This account rests entirely on the U.S. Attorney's Office release; the matter is still developing and no other records or reporting were available for this story.
Was this report accurate and useful?
Sources
Revision history
- Version 115 Aug 2026, 15:22current
First published.
- Version 115 Aug 2026, 15:17current
First published.
- Version 115 Aug 2026, 15:24current
First published.
How we work
This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.
Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.
Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.
None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.