{"id":286570,"date":"2026-09-15T16:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286570\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T16:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:14:12","slug":"three-wilkes-barre-men-convicted-in-federal-drug-trafficking-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286570\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Wilkes-Barre men convicted in federal drug-trafficking case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Three Wilkes-Barre men were convicted of drug-trafficking offenses following a two-week federal trial in Scranton, prosecutors announced.<\/p>\n<p>A jury convicted Jerrod Curtis, 42; Paul Daniel Chavis, also known as \u201cPayne,\u201d 56; and Reneard Harris, 68, on Sept. 10, 2026, of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and other offenses.<\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors said Curtis operated a drug-trafficking organization from his Wilkes-Barre barbershop. Authorities said the conspiracy involved cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl.<\/p>\n<p>During the investigation, the DEA and other law-enforcement agencies recovered more than 10 kilograms of fentanyl from members of the conspiracy, along with large quantities of other drugs, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p>The jury also found Chavis guilty of distributing and possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute on two occasions in 2025. Curtis and Harris were convicted of using a communication facility to facilitate drug trafficking, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>The case was tried before U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Saporito Jr. Sentencing information was not immediately released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Three Wilkes-Barre men were convicted of drug-trafficking offenses following a two-week federal trial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-286570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}