Derek Mountz Gets 105 Months for Heroin-Meth Trafficking

Derek Mountz, a 35-year-old man from Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, is headed to federal prison for nearly nine years after admitting his role in a brutal heroin and methamphetamine trafficking ring that poisoned communities across Schuylkill County in 2016. On May 6, 2019, Senior U.S. District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo slammed Mountz with a 105-month sentence, followed by four years of supervised release, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute over 100 grams of heroin and more than 50 grams of methamphetamine.

The scale of the operation was staggering—100 grams of heroin equates to roughly 4,000 individual street bags, flooding neighborhoods with deadly doses. Mountz’s deal wasn’t about survival or petty theft—it was organized, deliberate profiteering from addiction. Federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, led by U.S. Attorney David J. Freed, painted a clear picture: Mountz helped fuel a crisis that left bodies in alleys and shattered families in small-town Pennsylvania.

Mountz’s downfall came during a sweeping investigation helmed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania State Police, and Schuylkill County local law enforcement. Task forces combed through digital records, tracked drug movements, and leaned on informants to dismantle the network. Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa, known for his relentless pursuit of drug traffickers, prosecuted the case with surgical precision.

This conviction is a targeted strike under Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the Justice Department’s nationwide push to crush violent crime by uniting federal, state, and local agencies. Since its reinvigoration in 2017, PSN has prioritized locking up high-level traffickers who turn American streets into war zones. Mountz didn’t pull a trigger, but prosecutors argued—and the court agreed—his role was just as lethal.

The case also falls under the Middle District’s Heroin Initiative, a no-tolerance campaign aimed at dismantling supply chains feeding the opioid epidemic. From Scranton to coal country backroads, heroin and meth have ravaged Pennsylvania, and federal prosecutors are treating distributors like Mountz as the public enemy they are. This initiative is not about rounding up users—it’s about decapitating the networks that supply them.

Mountz now begins his 105-month federal sentence with no early outs. His name joins a growing list of those held accountable in Pennsylvania’s scorched-earth war on drug traffickers. As long as drugs flow and bodies pile up, federal prosecutors vow to come harder, strike faster, and send a message: deal poison, do hard time.