WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania — A Wilkes-Barre man who admitted taking part in an eight-person drug trafficking organisation that moved cocaine base and methamphetamine around Luzerne County has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison. Jonathan Bishop, 42, of Wilkes-Barre, was sentenced on October 30, 2026, to 41 months' imprisonment plus a term of supervised release by United States District Judge Joseph F. Saporito, Jr., for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine base and methamphetamine. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, led by U.S. Attorney Brian D. Miller, announced the sentence, and Wilkes-Barre's WBRE/WYOU (28/22 News) reported it on November 4.

Bishop previously admitted that between February 2024 and June 2025 he conspired with other members of the Jerrod Curtis Drug Trafficking Organization — the Curtis DTO — to distribute quantities of cocaine base and methamphetamine in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. His guilty plea and admission are the basis of the conviction Judge Saporito sentenced him on; there was no trial in Bishop's own case.

The eight-person organisation, member by member

Seven additional co-conspirators have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty in the same case, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The organisation's named leader, Jerrod Curtis, 42, of Wilkes-Barre, was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and other drug trafficking crimes after a three-week trial before Judge Saporito in September 2026, and is awaiting sentencing. Paul Daniel Chavis, also known as "Payne", 57, of Wilkes-Barre, and Reneard Harris, 68, of Wilkes-Barre, were convicted at the same three-week September trial and are also awaiting sentencing.

Two members have already been sentenced. Carlos Vasquez, 36, of Wilkes-Barre, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and was sentenced by Judge Saporito in September 2026 to 40 months' imprisonment plus a term of supervised release — one month less than Bishop. Pamela Montano, 61, of Exeter, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in September 2026 to nine months' imprisonment plus supervised release. Two more, Leroy Scriven, also known as "L", 56, of Exeter, and Joshua Forrester-Westad, 44, of Plains Township, have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Who ran the investigation

The prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, "Protecting the American People Against Invasion", which the Justice Department describes as a whole-of-government partnership aimed at criminal cartels, gangs, transnational criminal organisations and smuggling and trafficking rings. The task force team on this case was made up of agents and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Wilkes-Barre City Police Department, the Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department, the Pennsylvania State Police and the Luzerne County Drug Task Force, with the prosecution led by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Assistant U.S. Attorney James M. Buchanan prosecuted the case.

Background: why this case landed in federal court

Wilkes-Barre, in Luzerne County in northeastern Pennsylvania, sits in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the federal district anchored in Scranton. A local distribution conspiracy of this size — eight defendants, two drugs, a sixteen-month admitted run — is the kind of case the HSTF framework was built to take federal: the same judge, Judge Saporito, handled the September trial of the organisation's alleged leadership and the guilty pleas and sentences of its other members, so the whole organisation is being dismantled inside one courtroom, sentence by sentence.

What happens next

For Bishop, the remaining step is serving the 41-month term in federal custody, followed by the term of supervised release Judge Saporito imposed; the Justice Department announcement does not give the length of that supervised-release term or a surrender date. For the rest of the organisation, the case is not finished: Curtis, Chavis and Harris — the three men convicted at the September trial — are awaiting sentencing, as are Scriven and Forrester-Westad, who pleaded guilty. No sentencing dates for those five men were announced in either the federal release or the local reporting.