Texas man draws 12 years for drug offense

A Gilmer, Texas, man was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Hot Springs on Tuesday to 12 years in federal prison and four years of supervised release.

Shane Ellis Krum, 37, was sentenced on one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, according to the office of David Clay Fowlkes, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey presided over the hearing.

A Garland County sheriff’s deputy conducted a traffic stop on a brown sedan for running a stop sign in Hot Springs on or about Dec. 26, 2017, according to Krum’s plea agreement. The vehicle stopped and the driver, Krum, who had no passengers with him, got out of the car.

Afterward, the agreement states Krum walked to a fence on the side of the road while ignoring the deputy’s verbal commands to come back to the vehicle. Krum lit a cigarette, turned, walked back to the car, and sat back down in the driver’s seat. Dispatch advised the sheriff’s deputy, as well as a second deputy who arrived on the scene to assist, that Krum had a search waiver on file. The deputies began searching the sedan pursuant to the waiver, and a loaded semi-automatic pistol was found underneath the driver’s seat.

One of the deputies walked to the fence where Krum had stood previously and found a backpack on the ground, the agreement states. When asked about the backpack, Krum said that the box was not his and that someone else was driving his car. A search of the backpack revealed a box that had a plastic bag of suspected methamphetamine, a plastic bag of suspected marijuana, digital scales and several clean plastic bags.

The suspected methamphetamine, the agreement states, was sent to the Arkansas Crime Laboratory, where it was determined to be 54.4723 grams of methamphetamine at 93.1 (±5.2) % purity.

Krum was indicted on Sept. 12, 2018, according to court records. He entered a guilty plea to the possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine charge during a change of plea hearing on Oct. 1, 2019. The other charge on Krum’s superseding indictment that was filed March 14, 2019, felon in possession of a firearm, was dismissed as per his plea agreement.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Achorn and Candace Taylor prosecuted this case for the Western District of Arkansas, according to a news release from Fowlkes.