Another guilty plea comes from one of 31 indicted for drug activity in 2021

JOHNSTOWN — A resident of Middletown, Del., has become the latest defendant to enter a guilty plea on charges stemming from a 2021 indictment of 31 suspects by a federal grand jury in Johnstown. Paul Smith, 46, entered that plea to one count of a superseding indictment involving a conspiracy to distribute 100 grams or more of a substance containing heroin between April 2019 and July 2021, Western Pennsylvania United States Attorney Eric G.

Olshan announced Tuesday. Smith entered his plea before Senior United States District Judge Kim R. Gibson, who scheduled sentencing for Jan.



21, 2025. Olshan said Smith was intercepted on a federal wiretap obtaining quantities of the drugs that he distributed to others. The U.

S. Attorney said the law provides for a total sentence of not less than five years and up to 40 years in prison, a fine of up to $5 million, or both. Assistant United States Attorney Maureen Sheehan-Balchon once again prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.

Olshan said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Laurel Highlands Resident Agency and Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation that led to the prosecution of Smith. He said additional agencies participating in this investigation include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation bureau, the U.S.

Postal Inspection Service, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and State Police, Cambria and Indiana county district attorneys’ offices, and multiple agencies covering Cambria and Indiana counties, including Indiana Borough Police Department. He said this prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces investigation, which identifies, disrupts, and dismantles high-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States. Most of those indicted were Johnstown residents, but five were from the Philadelphia region, and one each from Conshohocken in suburban Philadelphia, Turtle Creek in suburban Pittsburgh, and one from Indiana.

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