A federal judge sentenced Andreaus Benard Oliver Jr. to 14 years in a China-to-Georgia synthetic-drug case.

A federal sentence after a guilty plea is a conviction result, not an open accusation. The Justice Department said Oliver Jr.'s Cordele residence on 4th Avenue was used as a conversion lab for synthetic cannabinoids ordered from China and paid for with cryptocurrency. WALB and WGXA summarized the same sentencing announcement. Statutory background on co-defendants still at large remains allegation until proved.

U.S. Attorney William R. Keyes's office said Oliver Jr. was sentenced Oct. 1 before U.S. District Judge Tilman E. Self III after an April 15 guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. The announced term is 168 months, followed by three years of supervised release, consecutive to Crisp County Superior Court Case No. 19R-434. A consecutive state term is a custody stack. It is not a new trial finding on the federal count.

Prosecutors said the organization acquired synthetic cannabinoids and fentanyl from China beginning in 2023. Shipments arrived at Oliver Jr.'s Cordele address. A July 22, 2024 search, the department said, found more than 175 metal pans, liquid cannabinoids, more than 350 dried sheets of paper soaked with cannabinoids, attorney-style return labels, inmate shipping labels, cash, and ledgers. That inventory is what agents said they seized. It is the factual basis the court accepted with the plea, as the government describes it.

Co-conspirator sentences already entered include Andreaus Benard Oliver Sr. at 210 months, Devito Duran Young at 327 months, and Trace Davrin Works at 262 months. Xin Wang and Gao Yong of China remain charged and at large on the department's account. WALB reported the father-and-son Cordele angle the same day. An at-large indictment is still an accusation for those two defendants. Anyone who still faces charges is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.