An Arkansas man identified as the primary distributor in a fentanyl ring responsible for thousands of pills, including one that resulted in a fatal overdose, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison today.
U.S. District Judge James M. Moody, Jr. ordered 38-year-old Trent Porter to serve 324 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release after Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl resulting in death. Federal prison sentences do not include parole.
Jonathan D. Ross, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced the sentencing.
A federal grand jury previously indicted Porter and co-defendants Lamont Kirk, 50, and Willie Johnson, 43, both of Little Rock, for their roles in the operation. On June 25, 2025, all three men pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in separate court proceedings.
Kirk was sentenced on October 29, 2025, to 13 years in federal prison. On November 7, 2025, Johnson received a sentence of more than 14 years.
The inquiry began on August 20, 2023, when Little Rock Police Department officers responded to a distress call at a local property and discovered a deceased male, identified in court filings as D.R. A state medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was a deadly amount of fentanyl, which was thought to have been ingested in a single pill.
Police determined that D.R. On the day of the overdose, I acquired the drug from Kirk at his home.
On August 23, 2023, officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Little Rock Police Department executed a search warrant at Kirk’s home, seizing a weapon and a minor amount of narcotics. Investigators discovered Kirk had obtained the tablets from Johnson two days before.
Later that day, cops conducting a traffic stop on Johnson’s vehicle discovered 99 fentanyl tablets in his pocket. The investigation found that Johnson had obtained the drugs from Porter.
Officers located Porter in his vehicle and discovered a bottle containing 308 fentanyl pills in his pocket. A search of Porter’s home revealed an additional 1,617 fentanyl pills.
Porter was on active parole at the time of the offense and had a number of prior felony convictions, including possession with intent to deliver controlled substances, maintaining a drug premises, aggravated assault, possession of firearms by certain individuals, breaking and entering, fleeing, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Porter was designated a career offender under federal guidelines because he had at least two prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses.
The DEA investigated the case, with assistance from the Little Rock Police Department. Chris Givens, an assistant United States attorney, prosecuted the case.
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