ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A California man who acted as the leader for an Alaska drug trafficking organization was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.
According to court documents, in spring 2022, Tyrone Hampton, 44, moved his pregnant wife and co-defendant, Stephanie Blanchard, 39, and fellow alleged gang members, Keith Crossley, 37, and Lawrence McGirt, 27, from Southern California to Alaska in 2022.
Once in Alaska, Hampton and his co-conspirators began selling illegal drugs, primarily heroin and fentanyl. One of the locations Hampton used for drug trafficking was an apartment in Wasilla. On April 12, 2022, the landlord of the apartment called law enforcement to trespass multiple people frequenting the apartment.
Hampton’s main drug supplier was Kevyn Watson, 43, who was serving a 40-year prison sentence in Oklahoma. He had access to multiple contraband cellphones in prison and used the phones to coordinate the multiple packages of drugs to Alaska through the mail…