ROCKFORD, Illinois — A 68-year-old Rockford man found with roughly 700 grams of cocaine, $17,000 in cash and a loaded handgun in searches of his home and a rented storage unit has been sentenced to 15 years and eight months in federal prison for cocaine trafficking and illegally possessing the firearm. U.S. District Judge Iain D. Johnston imposed the sentence on William Spears on October 30, 2026. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois — U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros — announced it on Wednesday, November 4, together with Christopher Amon, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Spears was arrested in June 2024 at the end of a four-month narcotics investigation, federal prosecutors said. At the time of his arrest he was carrying three and a half grams of cocaine, which he had been planning to sell to another person, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The much larger quantity came later: authorities searched his home and a storage unit he rented and found roughly 700 grams of cocaine, $17,000 in cash and a loaded handgun.

The numbers in the case

Spears pleaded guilty earlier this year to two offenses: possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine, and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. The second charge exists because Spears is a previously convicted felon, and as a convicted felon he was barred from possessing firearms at all — which is why the loaded handgun found in the searches was itself a federal crime, separate from the drug charge.

What prosecutors argued at sentencing

In a sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Rosati wrote that Spears's actions "significantly contributed to the drug problem plaguing the Rockford community" and argued that a lengthy sentence was needed to protect the public from further trafficking, according to reporting on the government's filing. Judge Johnston's sentence — 15 years and eight months — is the term Spears, now 68, must serve in the federal system, where sentences are served without the parole system that exists in state prisons.

Background: a four-month investigation in Rockford

Rockford, in Winnebago County in northern Illinois, is the community prosecutors named in their sentencing argument. The investigation that ended with Spears's June 2024 arrest ran for four months before officers moved in, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the searches that followed it — of a home and a separately rented storage unit — produced the cocaine, the cash and the loaded gun that together form the core of the government's case. The sentence was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois and the ATF's Chicago Division, the two offices that put their names to the November 4 announcement.

What happens next

Spears pleaded guilty, so there is no trial ahead in this case; the remaining step is the service of the 188-month sentence in federal custody. At 68, the term runs well into his eighties. The U.S. Attorney's announcement does not list a separate surrender date or any further court date in the case, and no appeal is recorded in the announcements from either the U.S. Attorney's Office or the local reporting on the sentencing. The four-month investigation, the June 2024 arrest and this year's guilty pleas are now a closed sequence ending in the October 30 judgment.