The United State Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh says a former Ivy League-educated lawyer, turned drug trafficker has been sentenced on distribution charges.
Acting U.S. Attorney Troy Rivetti says 62-year-old James France of Scott Township was sentenced on Tuesday to over 12-and-a-half years (151 months) behind bars, followed by eight years of supervised release after being convicted of distributing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.
France worked for “several Pittsburgh-based law firms before turning to a life of methamphetamine distribution.”
France was arrested several times, going back to 2015, for methamphetamine-related drug charges, including in 2016 when he war arrested with 430 grams of pure methamphetamine and $8,000 in cash, inside his home.
Prosecutors say France also tried to obstruct justice by “lying to the Court, violating the conditions of his bond, threatening to beat a person’s grandparents ‘to within an inch of their lives,’ and verbally abusing his court-appointed counsel.”