Marquese Whitted Gets 8 Years for Heroin, Meth Conspiracy

Marquese Whitted, 33, of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, is headed to federal prison for eight years after being found guilty of fueling a drug epidemic in Schuylkill County. Whitted was sentenced to 96 months’ imprisonment by Senior U.S. District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo, followed by four years of supervised release, for his role in a 2016 conspiracy to distribute heroin and methamphetamine.

Whitted pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin and over 50 grams of methamphetamine. At today’s hearing in Scranton, prosecutors detailed how Whitted was directly accountable for 100 grams of heroin—equivalent to roughly 4,000 individual bags sold on the street—and over 400 grams of meth. These weren’t personal-use amounts; this was a street-level operation designed to profit from addiction.

The violence tied to Whitted’s crimes didn’t stop at distribution. During a police pursuit in October 2016, Whitted rammed a police van with his vehicle, then attempted to strike a second. The court found he created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury during his desperate flight—escalating a drug arrest into a lethal threat.

Investigation into Whitted’s operation was a joint effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pennsylvania State Police, and local Schuylkill County law enforcement. The collaboration peeled back layers of the drug network, exposing how tightly woven trafficking operations had become in the region’s hardest-hit communities.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa under the umbrella of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a federal initiative reinvigorated in 2017 to target violent criminals and reduce gun and drug-related violence through coordinated enforcement.

This prosecution also falls under the Middle District of Pennsylvania’s Heroin Initiative, a district-wide crackdown on heroin traffickers. Federal, state, and local agencies are working in lockstep to dismantle supply chains and hold dealers like Whitted accountable for flooding neighborhoods with deadly drugs. The message is clear: fuel the epidemic, and the feds will come for you.

RELATED: Schuylkill Co. Men Face Federal Charges for Heroin & Meth Trafficking