A St. Louis, Mo., man traveling by bus from Los Angeles, Calif., was sentenced in federal court after more than 31 pounds of methamphetamine was found in his luggage at a Kansas City, Mo., bus station.
Cregg L. Matthews, 56, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Matthews was sentenced as a career offender due to his prior felony convictions.
Matthews was found guilty at trial on June 6, 2023, of one count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute.
On March 9, 2019, investigators believed Matthews was traveling on a bus from California and would be arriving at a bus station in Kansas City, Mo., and could be transporting a large amount of methamphetamine.
Law enforcement officers at the bus station used a service canine to check the luggage under the bus in the luggage bins. After the bus arrived and the passengers were off the bus, a police service canine alerted to a suitcase with Matthews’s name on it. Matthews was carrying a black bag when he was contacted by the police. A police service canine also alerted to that bag.
When investigators searched the black bag Matthews was carrying, they found 10 bundles of methamphetamine that weighed a total of 10 pounds. In the suitcase retrieved from the bus, investigators found 16 bundles of methamphetamine that weighed a total of 21.6 pounds.
Matthews was discharged from parole about a year before he committed this federal offense, after a 10-year prison sentence for possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute. Including this conviction, Matthews has three drug-trafficking convictions and a prior felony conviction of statutory rape. While in pretrial custody in this case, according to court documents, he was in a jail fight.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean T. Foley and John Constance. It was investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, MoWIN (the Missouri Western Interdiction and Narcotics Task Force), and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
