United States Drug Enforcement Administration

PEORIA, Ill. – Todd C. Smith, Assistant Special Agent in Charge at U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration-Chicago Division, and U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Harris for the Central District of Illinois announced that Assante Bangmon, 31, of Peoria, Illinois, has been sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, to be followed by four years of supervised release.

At the sentencing hearing on Aug. 18, 2022, the government presented evidence that in February 2021 a Peoria police officer approached Bangmon in a clothing store to detain him for an outstanding arrest warrant. Bangmon refused to comply with the officer’s commands and, instead, fled out the back door of the business and ran away down a nearby street. As Bangmon fled, he discarded a cell phone and keys to a Jeep he had driven to the clothing store and parked in the business’s lot. Officers ultimately captured Bangmon in a residential area adjacent to the clothing store. Pursuant to a search of Bangmon’s Jeep, police located 12 individually wrapped baggies containing 37 grams of crack cocaine located in the arm rest of the driver’s side door.   

Bangmon was indicted in February 2021, and pleaded guilty to the charge in April 2022. He has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The statutory penalties for possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance are five to 40 years imprisonment, up to a $5 million dollar fine, and up to a four-year term of supervised release.

The DEA and the Peoria Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald L. Hanna represented the government in the prosecution.