Drug dealer heading back to jail

Operation is called largest ever in region

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A lifelong drug dealer who said after his last federal conviction that he was going to change for the better is now facing at least 20 years in prison for again dealing drugs, this time as part of a massive ring described as the largest ever prosecuted in Western Pennsylvania.

Monty Grinage, 39, originally from North Braddock, pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to his role as a distributor for a network allegedly headed by Florida felon Don Juan Mendoza.

Grinage is the first distributor in the ring to enter a plea. Another man, Anthony Davis of Donora, had previously pleaded to allowing his house to be used to store guns and drugs, but he wasn’t an actual dealer.

Grinage was and has been since his early 20s. He has two prior convictions in federal court as well as numerous state court convictions.

He admitted Thursday to conspiracy to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine and possession of an illegal gun. Because he’s a felon, he can’t have a firearm. But law officers who searched his residence in December 2017 said he had one, and Grinage admitted that he did.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Lanni said that had Grinage gone to trial, the government would have proved that he distributed between 15 and 50 kilograms of cocaine for Mendoza’s operation. Agents said his distribution area was mostly in the eastern end of Pittsburgh and its suburbs.

Grinage is among nearly 40 defendants under indictment in a sweeping case that culminated in April with mass arrests.

The reputed ringleaders, in addition to Mendoza, are two Monongahela Valley brothers, Jamie and Deaubre Lightfoot.

An FBI task force said the network stretched from cartels in Mexico to Los Angeles and Atlanta and into the Pittsburgh region. The main distribution point was Jamie Lightfoot’s house in Penn Hills, agents said, with multiple-kilo shipments arriving there in a recreational vehicle and a van.

The investigation became public in November when the FBI and state police watched as alleged members of the conspiracy arrived at Jamie Lightfoot’s house in an RV hauling 52 kilos of cocaine, 85 pounds of marijuana and an AK-47.

Although Lightfoot lives in Penn Hills, he was originally from Donora, where his father, Jamie Lightfoot Sr., also was a major drug dealer.

Lightfoot Sr. is also among the defendants in the current