United States Drug Enforcement Administration

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. - Evelyn Jean Vickers, 39, of Kingsport, Tenn., was sentenced on June 30, 2015, by the Honorable R. Leon Jordan, U.S. District Court Judge, to a federal prison term of 110 months for her role in an extensive a-(alpha-pyrrolidinopentiophenone) distribution conspiracy centered in and around the Sullivan County area and for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. A-PVP is a synthetic drug which is commonly referred to on the street as “gravel” or “flakka.”

Vickers’s federal sentence was ordered to run consecutively to her sentences and probation revocations in Sullivan County General Sessions Court as well as any sentence that may be imposed in Sullivan County Circuit Court.

According to the plea agreement on file with the U.S. District Court Clerk, Vickers admitted that she conspired to distribute and was accountable for a conservative estimate of 5,200 grams of a-PVP between March 2012 and March 2014. In December 2013, Vickers, who was already a convicted felon, was arrested while in possession of a .22 caliber pistol in a room at a hotel in Kingsport, Tenn. Vickers admitted that she was one of the primary a-PVP distributors for co-defendant, Richard Hillman, 54, of Kingsport, Tenn., and for portions of the conspiracy, she sold an ounce of a-PVP per day.

Hillman is currently scheduled to be sentenced on August 13, 2015. Others who have been previously sentenced in this a-PVP trafficking investigation include Austin Michael Stallard, Johnny Michael Stallard, Phillip Wayne Mullins and Johnny White, who were respectively sentenced to serve 121 months, 180 months, 151 months and 120 months in federal prison.

Law enforcement agencies participating in the investigation which led to the indictment and subsequent conviction of Vickers and her co-defendants include the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Department of Homeland Security Investigations, Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office, Kingsport Police Department, Hawkins County Sheriff’s Department, Johnson City Police Department, Greeneville Police Department, Hendersonville, North Carolina Police Department, and Scott County, Virginia Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne Taylor represented the United States.

The DEA encourages parents, along with their children, to educate themselves about the dangers of legal and illegal drugs by visiting DEA’s interactive websites at www.justthinktwice.com, www.GetSmartAboutDrugs.com and www.dea.gov.