Man gets a decade in prison for drugs, gun possession

A Pittsburgh drug dealer has been sentenced to more than a decade in federal prison for selling drugs and possessing guns while already on federal probation for heroin trafficking.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab imposed a term of 10 years and 10 months on John Burton, 32, last week.

Burton has been dealing drugs for 20 years, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Haller said, and deserved a heavy prison term.

“Mr. Burton endangered other people in 2019 through his recidivist heroin and fentanyl dealing,” he said in sentencing papers. “He also endangered other people in 2019 by possessing three loaded and stolen pistols in furtherance of his drug dealing despite his three prior felony convictions for drug-trafficking and gun crimes. He did all of this while on federal supervised release following his prison sentence for a prior heroin-trafficking conviction in this district.”

The current case stems from a drug deal on the North Side that Pittsburgh police said they saw happen on June 14, 2019. Officers watched Nico Nixon and Burton, both in a car, sell a brick of heroin and fentanyl to a customer. Officers grabbed the customer and stopped the car. Both were arrested on state charges, but both made bond and then became fugitives, Mr. Haller said.

City police and U.S. marshals tracked down Burton in August 2019, surrounded the building and told him to come out.

As law officers tried to persuade him to surrender, they smelled something burning as well as a bleach odor. Burton finally came out and surrendered, after which police searched the apartment.

They found 39 grams of fentanyl, 18 grams of heroin, some crack cocaine and three loaded guns with extra magazines.

Police and marshals also found a destroyed cellphone among dirty dishes in the sink. It had been burned with bleach and investigators could not recover any data from it.

During a recorded jail conversation, Burton told a woman that he had intentionally destroyed the phone when police arrived.

“Mr. Burton has been engaging in this kind of behavior for nearly 20 years,” Mr. Haller said.

Burton and Nixon both pleaded guilty in federal court last January. Nixon is in prison.

A third man charged in the case, Quintine Scales, was sentenced to prison over the summer. Prosecutors said he helped the other two distribute heroin and fentanyl.