Markham Man's Appeal Fails, Re-Sentenced To 40 Years For Drug Trafficking, Gun Crimes

URBANA, IL — A Markham man was re-sentenced this week to nearly 41 years in prison for his conviction on drug trafficking and gun charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office Central District of Illinois said.

Deon Evans, 42, was sentenced July 13 to 40 years and eight months’ imprisonment in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for trafficking heroin and methamphetamine, carrying and possessing a firearm during his drug trafficking crimes, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

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At the resentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Colin S. Bruce found that Evans faced a mandatory consecutive 25-year sentence for his offense of carrying a firearm while distributing heroin and possessing a firearm in furtherance of his possession of methamphetamine (“ecstasy”) with the intent to distribute it. Judge Bruce further determined that Evans was involved in the trafficking of at least eight to 24 firearms and found that Evans had obstructed justice by providing false testimony during his case. Evans faced an enhanced sentence because he was on federal supervised release at the time of his offenses from a 2007 conviction for possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime in the Southern District of Iowa.

Evans was originally convicted following a jury trial in January 2020. During the three-day trial, the government presented evidence that, in July 2016, Evans traveled from his residence in Markham to a gas station in Gilman, where he sold 48.4 grams of heroin in exchange for $4,500. In August 2016, Evans again traveled to the gas station to meet the same buyer, this time bringing an associate and two loaded firearms. During this meeting, Evans sold 124.3 grams of heroin for $11,250.

After the August 2016 heroin sale, Evans was stopped by troopers with the Illinois State Police on Interstate 57. Troopers searched Evans’ vehicle and found the cash hidden under the back seat, two fully loaded firearms, an extra magazine, and 173 ecstasy pills that contained methamphetamine. The trial evidence established that Evans obtained one of those firearms, a Glock, Model 30, .45 caliber, semi-automatic pistol, by trading two grams of heroin and $100 in exchange for the gun. The gun was also found to have been stolen from Indiana. Additional evidence showed that Evans used two individuals, known as “straw purchasers”, to purchase 14 guns for him in Birmingham, Alabama, which he then sold illegally in Chicago. Some of the firearms were later recovered after they were used in violent crimes.

Judge Bruce originally sentenced Evans in January of 2022. Following an appeal, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing to determine if Evans’s trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective, and for resentencing. Judge Bruce determined that Evans’s trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance before proceeding to resentencing. Judge Bruce ordered the new sentence to be served consecutively to Evans’s 27-month sentence of imprisonment imposed in the Southern District of Iowa for violating his conditions of federal supervised release.