Seattle, WA. — The first defendant sentenced in a sweeping federal drug trafficking case targeting Seattle’s homeless encampments and International District received a 30-month prison term Wednesday in U.S. District Court, federal officials announced.
Theodore Nation, 36, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Tana Lin after pleading guilty to his role in a large-scale drug trafficking organization. Nation has been in federal custody since January 2025. During sentencing, Judge Lin said Nation had been dealing drugs “to particularly vulnerable and marginalized members of the community.”
“This drug trafficking organization sold addictive substances to some of the most marginalized members of our community — those living in homeless encampments such as ‘The Jungle’ under Interstate 5,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd. “This defendant made his living feeding the addiction of others, making it ever more difficult for them to escape the dangers of homelessness.”…