Five loaded guns, ounce of cocaine net former Champaign man 22 years in prison
Mar. 23—URBANA — A former Champaign man convicted of having loaded guns and a large amount of cocaine stashed in a yard across the street from his drug operation three years ago has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Anthony Miles, 37, of Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced Thursday by Judge Roger Webber for armed violence, possession with intent to deliver cocaine and being an armed habitual criminal, all charges stemming from a Nov. 10, 2020, incident in the 3000 block of Ridgewood Drive in which a house was riddled with gunfire. No one was injured.
A jury found Miles guilty of all those crimes last month, believing evidence presented by Assistant State's Attorney Scott Larson that in the wake of the house being shot up, Miles ran across the street with five loaded guns and about an ounce of cocaine that he hid under a tarp in the backyard before police could respond to the shots fired call.
He then was picked up, driven away from the crime scene, and not seen again until his arrest in Dallas about 17 months later. He has been in the Champaign County Jail since April 2022.
It was Miles' third conviction for drug dealing and his third for being a felon in possession of a gun, said Larson, who sought a 25-year prison term for him. The maximum he could have received was 30 years.
"Guns and drugs are tearing up this community. It's no coincidence that that home on Ridgewood was shot up because the defendant chose to set up his drug operation at that home," Larson said, reminding the judge that that shooting happened at 11:30 a.m. in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
"Consider the children who live in the house right next to where he set up his drug operation," Lason said. "These shootings do not happen in a vacuum. They are retaliatory and they continue a cycle of violence."
"This was not a mistake. This was a preplanned operation," said Larson. "He was doing it on purpose out of pure greed."
Noting that Miles had been to prison multiple times and violated parole every time he was released, the prosecutor argued that Miles was beyond rehabilitation.
"All we can hope to do is protect the public from Mr. Miles," he said.
Miles' attorney, Jim Martinkus of Champaign, argued for a minimum sentence of 15 years for his client, the father of four children. He said Miles' last felony conviction was in 2011 and he had not been in any trouble since his release in 2016 until his arrest in 2022. In between those years, both his mother and a brother had died.
"He's an excellent father, a good human. He's made mistakes. He's hardworking," Martinkus said.
"I'm not perfect," said Miles, asking the judge to fashion a sentence that would require him to spend no more than a decade away from his children. Webber called Miles' active engagement with his children a mitigating factor but noted that the "use of multiple guns with drugs makes this a pretty serious offense."
He sentenced Miles to 22 years in prison for the armed violence conviction and 18 years on the drug and armed habitual criminal convictions, all to be served at the same time.
Because Miles has to serve 85 percent of his sentence for being an armed habitual criminal, that means he must serve just over 15 years. He was given credit for 360 days already spent in custody.
