Drug Dealer Sentenced To 10 Years
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Lee Henson’s booking photo from 2022.
ABERDEEN – A Yalobusha County man was sentenced in federal court last week to serve 10 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and possession of firearms used in drug trafficking. Lee Everett Henson, 53, was sentenced in Aberdeen on Sept. 24 in a case that garnered scrutiny from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Yalobusha County Sheriff Jerimaine Gooch reported that Henson was a supplier for fentanyl pills in Yalobusha County and Tallahatchie County prior to his October, 2022, arrest by deputies. Henson was living in the Tillatoba area when he was apprehended.
“There were several lethal overdoses from fentanyl in that area during the same time,” Gooch said.
Sheriff Gooch reported that Henson was arrested on October 10, 2022, after a year-long, multi-agency investigation that was launched after the U.S. Postal Service intercepted several packages. The packages shipped to Henson included one that contained nearly 100 grams of fentanyl, which is over 800 pills according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Mississippi.
The sheriff also reported that deputies and agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics (MBN) purchased approximately 80 fentanyl pills from Henson using confidential informants in the months leading up to his arrest as they worked to build the case.
Yalobusha County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Thomas West told the Herald that deputies had Henson under surveillance for almost five hours the night he was arrested. Deputies had watched him at a house and trailed him to Hwy. 330 before stopping his vehicle.
Law enforcement officials seized hundreds of fentanyl pills when Lee Henson was arrested in 2022.
West also said approximately two ounces of cocaine, 900 dosage units of fentanyl pills masked as counterfeit oxycodone pills, two firearms and approximately $4,200 in cash were seized. MBN agents assisted in the arrest, backing up West and deputy Taylor Byford during the traffic stop on Hwy. 330.
Sheriff Gooch reported the U.S. Postal Inspection Service assisted MBN and his department with the investigation. The case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s press release. Project Safe Neighborhoods is a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make neighborhoods safer for everyone.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Howell Addison prosecuted the case. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced Henson to 123 months in federal prison for the offenses, 63 months for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl to run consecutive to the 60-month sentence for possessing firearms in furtherance of drug of drug trafficking.
“Fentanyl is poison, and our office will do everything in our power to see that traffickers go to prison,” said U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner in the press release.
“Combating illicit drugs in the mail is a top priority for the US Postal Inspection Service,” said Scott Fix, Inspector-in-Charge of the Houston Division. “The sentence handed down today should serve as a reminder to other perpetrators that we remain steadfast with our law enforcement partners to bring those who engage in this activity to justice.”
West reported Henson will serve the 123 month sentence day-for-day, meaning he is not eligible for parole, probation or early release.
Deputies also seized two guns from Lee Henson when he was arrested in 2022.
West also said that Henson was on probation at the time of his arrest, and will likely return to Texas to serve the remainder of a 75-year sentence for murder after serving the federal time.
Henson and two other teenagers were convicted in 1988 for the murder of 16 year-old Angela Stevens in Princetown, Texas, according to published reports. He was 17-years old at the time of the murder and served 30 years and two months of the 75 year sentence before he was granted parole in 2018. Henson was allowed to move to Mississippi where he has family. His parole also transferred to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, where he was reporting to the Yalobusha County parole officer.
“It will be up to Texas authorities to determine if they revoke his parole and require him to serve the remainder of the sentence,” West said. “Either way he will not be back in Yalobusha County for a long time.”
