Egegik man sentenced in Southeast meth case

A man from Egegik was sentenced to 20 months in jail after he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 3 pounds of methamphetamine.

Jason Corey Vincent Alto, 21, was caught May 30 last year while he was traveling on the ferry vessel MV Kennicott from Washington State toward Whittier.

The U.S. Coast Guard and state trooper drug enforcement cooperated on the bust, which happened in Ketchikan.

Jack Schmidt, assistant U.S. attorney in the Juneau office, prosecuted the case in federal court.

“Mr. Alto had been carrying in excess of 3 pounds of methamphetamine on the Alaska state ferry,” Schmidt said. “Just happenstance that when he disembarked in Ketchikan, he exhibited signs that he was potentially a drug trafficker. He was contacted, and they got a warrant, and a dog hit on his luggage which contained the 3 pounds of methamphetamine.”

Depending on how it was cut, that could have been more than 5,000 doses, and the street value depended on what part of the state it was bound for, which Schmidt said was determined in the investigation.

It was the largest meth bust ever in Southeast Alaska, Schmidt said.

“Typically we have people dealing in ounces, maybe in the half-pound range. It’s highly unusual to see anything above a kilo, which is about 2.2 pounds, and here it was nearly 3 pounds,” he said.

Alto, then a 20-year-old with substance abuse problems, was classified as a drug mule, responsible for trafficking the narcotics, but likely not for dealing them.

Schmidt had asked for nearly three times the jail sentence that U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess handed down.

“I thought that sending a message was an important aspect of the case, given the quantity of the amount of drugs,” Schmidt said. “But the defendant had a fairly minimal criminal history, and he was young, and I think those were the things the judge had taken into consideration in fashioning the sentence the way he did.”

According to reporting in the Juneau Empire, Alto told the judge he plans to return to Egegik and study to become a commercial pilot.

He is in custody and will serve the remainder of his 20 months in jail before beginning five years of supervised release.

KDLG - Dillingham

KDLG is our partner station in Dillingham. KTOO collaborates with partners across the state to cover important news and to share stories with our audiences.

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