DERBY – A 49-year-old Derby man was sentenced Nov. 18 to six years in federal prison for selling large quantities of methamphetamine to a person working with the FBI in 2023.
Andre Messam also allegedly tried to sell cocaine to the operative, only to take off once he saw police were near.
Authorities didn’t follow, but the FBI had a unit following his vehicle from the air and snapped a photo of him throwing cocaine out the window of his car (shown above) while getting on Interstate 91 north. Law enforcement was able to retrieve and photograph the packaged cocaine. Messam was arrested later in the day at a car rental agency.
The meth that Messam sold was 100 percent pure, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and weighed about 80 grams in total, along with about 5 grams of cocaine.
In arguing for a lighter sentence, Messam’s lawyer filed a brief chronicling the man’s life, which included being around drugs, violence and crime long before he hit his teens.
However, the prosecution countered that Messam has a long history of selling drugs. They said he was easily able to get large quantities of methamphetamine, which showed he was becoming more sophisticated as a drug trafficker – all the more reason to get him off the streets.
Messam will have four years of federal probation after he gets out.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathaniel J. Gentile.