Federal judge sends Beltzhoover heroin dealer to prison for 20 years

Saying he was personally responsible for distributing the most heroin she’s seen in a decade on the federal bench, U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer on Wednesday sent Lance Gardenhire to prison for 20 years.

Gardenhire, 42, of Beltzhoover, had pleaded guilty in the spring to drug trafficking and laundering the proceeds, taking responsibility for selling between 30 and 90 kilograms of heroin supplied from New Jersey from 2012 to 2015.

“By all accounts,” the judge said, “you were the leader of this organization.”

She also noted that he started dealing again after his release from federal custody in 2012 after a heroin and crack cocaine distribution indictment was dismissed on a suppression motion that challenged the legality of a search by Pittsburgh police.

She said despite that brush with thefederal system, he returned to the drugtrade almost immediately.

Gardenhire, who also has five drug convictions in state court, had long been a target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBIand city police. Hisdrug ring was a family affair. Gardenhire's wife, Lasean Gardenhire, and one of his six children, Khyree Gardenhire, 21, also were part of the operation.

“The Gardenhires, husband and wife, built their wealth on a foundation of heroin trafficking proceeds,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Haller in pre-sentence filings.

Lasean Gardenhire worked for Duquesne Light for a time, but beyond that she and her husband had no legitimate income sources.

Their money came from drugs, prosecutors said, which they used to buy houses, cars, jewelry and other items. In 2013 and 2014, they spent $200,000 on merchandise, according to receipts recovered by federal agents.

Mr. Haller said Lasean's role was to help her husband launder the drug money and Khyree was a distributor.

Judge Fischer on Wednesday

sentenced Lasean to eight months in prison and Khyree to 60 months.

The Garden-hires, who lived in a home on Zara Street that prosecutors say also was bought with drug money and extensively renovated, were among nearly 40 people rounded up in 2015 after federal agents and police swept through Beltzhoover, Mount Washington and other city neighborhoods following a multi-year investigation funded through the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force-program.

Federal agents said Gardenhire and another defendant, Corey Cheatom, traveled to New Jersey to obtain heroin and then doled it out to distributors in Pittsburgh.

Gardenhire and another man, Juan Wysong, used some of the money to buy and renovate houses in Beltzhoover and Mount Troy.

The properties were seized by the U.S. attorney's office along with an Infiniti, a Mercedes-Benz and several other-high-end cars used by the ring.

Cheatom and Wysong pleaded guilty, as did everyone else in the case.

In imposing the 20-year sentence, Judge Fischer said Gardenhire could have received life in prison under U.S. sentencing guidelines because of the amount of heroin and his status as a career criminal.

But his lawyer and the U.S. attorney's office worked out the two-decade term as part of a deal.

“This sentence appears to me to be reasonable,” the judge said.

She said the term, followed by 10 years of probation, addresses the seriousness of his drug-dealing and sends a message to others who would do the same, noting that much of her time as a judge is increasingly spent dealing with the consequences of heroin.

“It sucks the resources and life out of the community,” she said.