Drug dealer who sold elephant tranquilizers in Detroit gets minimum sentence

With five children to raise, convicted drug dealer Branden Smith knew his fate didn't look good when he faced the judge this week.

He was looking at a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, which was spelled out in the plea agreement he signed last year admitting to drug crimes.

Still, in perhaps an 11th-hour appeal to save himself, the 38-year-old Detroit father did what is rarely done in federal court: He tried to withdraw his guilty plea — on sentencing day — but the judge wouldn't hear of it.

In U.S. District Court Thursday, six years after the feds started tailing Smith over suspicions of drug activity, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts sentenced Smith to 10 years in prison for running a drug operation out of a stash house on Rossini Drive in Detroit from 2016-17.

Among the drugs he was peddling were cocaine, heroin and carfentanil — a fentanyl analogue that is 10,000 times more potent than morphine, and is normally used to tranquilize large animals, even elephants. Perhaps equally troubling, prosecutors say, is that Smith was an armed drug dealer, noting he had a Glock 23 pistol in his waistband on the day of his arrest, as well as an AK-47 extended pistol in the driver’s side door of the car he was exiting.

'Access to incredible sums of money'

"Smith deals in the most lethal types of controlled substances, heroin and carfentanil," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. "Worse, there is evidence he personally mixed the drugs."

And he made a lot of money doing it, the federal government alleges, noting when the investigation began in 2017, Smith was observed routinely driving expensive cars — including an Audi, a Corvette and a Bentley.

"However, there is no evidence that Smith had a legitimate job throughout the conspiracy. In fact, there is no record of even an attempt to file or pay any state taxes or document any legitimate income during the course of the conspiracy," prosecutors wrote, adding Smith's cellphone records suggest he had "access to incredible sums of money."

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According to court records, Smith has a 10th-grade education, reported working at Kelly Car Care while out on bond for this case, and indicated that he previously made cash doing landscaping and home improvement jobs.

Prosecutors, though, maintain there is no record of these cash jobs.

Smith, they said, was a drug dealer. And his victims were many.

"Smith contributed to the scourge that drugs have on our community. It is no secret that opioid abuse remains at near epidemic in the United States. … Yet, Smith profited for years selling these types of drugs, while destroying the lives of those who suffer from addiction," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Caitlin Casey and Robert White wrote in a sentencing memo. "Moreover, Smith engaged in armed drug dealing, further elevating the seriousness of this offense."

How Smith landed on the feds' radar

According to court records, here is what landed Smith in federal court:

In the spring of 2017, DEA agents learned that he was peddling large quantities of heroin, cocaine and other drugs from a house on Rossini Drive. Surveillance corroborated the tip.

Investigators then summoned the help of a confidential informant who had known Smith for many years and bought drugs from him in the past. On June 1, 2017, investigators gave this informant cash to buy heroin at the Rossini house.

Within minutes, the informant left the house and turned in 20 grams of heroin to investigators.

Two weeks later, the same informant went back to the same house to buy heroin, but came out with 9.9 grams of carfentanil instead.

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A search warrant was then obtained to raid the home, though federal agents set up surveillance before approaching the house. That's when they saw Smith pull up to the Rossini house in a Corvette with a front-seat passenger. A third person also came to the house, met Smith inside and then left.

As Smith left the house to return to the Corvette, he was arrested. He had a pistol in his waistband, an AK47 extended pistol in the driver's side of the Corvette, a pistol on a passenger seat and a fourth pistol in a bag.

Informant killed after Smith's arrest

Inside the house, federal agents found crack cocaine, oxycodone pills, 102 grams of carfentanil in a Styrofoam cup and additional guns in multiple rooms. They also seized electronic scales, food processors, a vacuum sealerwith rolls of bags, protective face masks and rubber gloves and a loaded shot gun.

Following his arrest, Smith was charged and appeared in duty court.

The following day, Smith was released on bond.

Five days later, the informant in the case was killed.

Shortly after, the charges against Smith would be dismissed. Investigators continued to work the case, and Smith would be back in federal court four years later.

On June 23, 2021, a federal grand jury indicted Smith in a four-count indictment. He cut a deal the following year and pleaded guilty to conspiracy and possessing carfentanil.

Smith's lawyer seeks mercy

Under the terms of his plea agreement, Smith faced up to life in prison.

His lawyer, however, urged the judge to show mercy, and consider a downward departure from the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.

Birmingham attorney Jonathan Simon also asked the judge not to go above the 10-year-minimum sentence, maintaining his client had a relatively clean record, no substance abuse history, a "stable, 17-year relationship" with a woman with whom he is raising a family.

According to court records, this is Smith's first felony conviction. He had a prior misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence from 2006, and received first-time drug offender probation for possession of controlled substances in 2021.

"Mr. Smith has demonstrated by his lack of criminal involvement before and after 2016 while working and raising his family that he is plainly not a violent offender who 'poses the most dangerous threat to society.'" Simon, Smith's lawyer, wrote in a sentencing memo.

Simon also noted that his client was a concealed weapon license holder and has been out on bond for more than a year with no violations.

But Smith's behavior while out on bond is not what prosecutors were hung up on.

It's what he did those years he visited the house on Rossini Street dealing heroin and carfentanil.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020 alone, more than 56,000 deaths involved synthetic opioids in the United States, which accounted for over 82% of all opioid-involved deaths in 2020.

“Deadly drugs like carfentanil are lethal by themselves, but even more dangerous when they are marketed as another drug. Adding guns to that mix increases the harm and risk to the community exponentially,” U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison stated in announcing Smith's sentence.

The government, meanwhile, did acknowledge one positive thing about Smith.

"To his credit, Smith claims to be actively involved in the lives of his five children," prosecutors wrote in court documents, nothing that Smith has expressed an interest in obtaining his GED and/or learning a trade. "The government hopes that Smith will use his time within the Bureau of Prisons to follow through on that goal."

Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Branden Smith sentenced to 10 years in prison for Detroit drug crimes