Members of the “Shorty” Drug Trafficking Group Sentenced to Federal Prison

The final defendant in a group charged with drug trafficking crimes in the Cedar Rapids area was sentenced today to twenty-seven years in federal prison.

Lavelle Davies, age 32, from Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced to 324 months' imprisonment and ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. Davies was sentenced following a July 25, 2025, guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Davies' codefendants were previously sentenced as follows:

Tanea Browning, age 29, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was sentenced on September 4, 2025, to 156 months' imprisonment and ordered to serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and two counts of distribution of a controlled substance.

Andre Corone McNairy, age 34, from Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced on September 24, 2025, to 210 months' imprisonment and ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Jeffery Lamonte Hayes, age 32, from Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced on September 8, 2025, to 151 months' imprisonment and ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term after pleading guilty to two counts of distribution of a controlled substance.

Javonte Carpenter, age 32, from Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced on August18, 2025, to 123 months' imprisonment and ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Evidence presented during court hearings showed that the group collectively was referred to as "Shorty." Th group passed phones around taking calls and making deliveries of cocaine and methamphetamine in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, area. In October 2023, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, law enforcement officers stopped a car that Davies, Browning, Hayes, and Carpenter were in. Officers found over five kilograms of methamphetamine in the car. While officers were later searching an apartment occupied by Davies and Browning, Davies threw a loaded gun out of a window. In April 2024, officers stopped McNairy driving in a car with over two kilograms of methamphetamine.

All five defendants were sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams and are in custody of the United States Marshal's Service or the Bureau of Prisons.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Emily K. Nydle and investigated by the Cedar Rapids Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the Muscatine County Drug Task Force, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.plLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link..

The case file number is 24-cr-43.

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