Cedar Rapids drug trafficker sentenced to federal prison

Date: Feb. 26, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

A man who trafficked cocaine base, fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana was sentenced yesterday to more than 12 years in federal prison. Cleveland Stephens, also known as "Schmitty," from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an August 27, 2025, guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

Information at sentencing showed that between August 2022 and June 2024, Stephens sold pounds of methamphetamine to multiple people. In October 2022, he was in a car that was stopped in Davenport, Iowa. Law enforcement officers searched the car and found cocaine base, cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana. In June 2024, law enforcement officers searched Stephens's house and car in Cedar Rapids and found methamphetamine, marijuana, and nearly $4,500 in cash.

Stephens was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Stephens was sentenced to 151 months' imprisonment and must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.

HSTF Kansas City is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, covering Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. HSTF Kansas City is composed of agents and officers from the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Marshals Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the State Investigative Agencies for Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, and the Kansas City Missouri Police Department.

This HSTF case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Devra T. Hake and Dillan Edwards and investigated by HSTF Kansas City, with the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Task Force consisting of the DEA, the Linn County Sheriff's Office, the Cedar Rapids Police Department, the Marion Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.