Cleveland man who sold drugs to Lorain, Medina county customers gets more than 30 years in prison

A Cleveland man who sold fentanyl to customers across Northeast Ohio, including in Lorain and Medina counties, was sentenced in federal court Friday to more than 30 years in prison. Brandon Bryant, 28, received 30 years and five months in prison from U.S. District Judge John Adams during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Akron. Bryant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, distribution of controlled substances, possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, and use of a communications facility in furtherance of a drug felony, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio said in a news release. Bryant will be on parole for the rest of his life upon release from prison. He also forfeited $13,093 in cash, two cars and a Rolex watch, federal prosecutors said. Brandon Bryant, his sister Brenea Bryant, and her boyfriend Devonn Fair were members of a "large-scale" fentanyl trafficking organization on Cleveland's east side from September 2019 to February 2022, prosecutors said. Brandon Bryant got large amounts of fentanyl from Fair, then sold it to customers in the Cleveland area. Fair and Brandon Bryant had "multiple" residences on the east side of Cleveland where they stored and sold the drugs to customers from Lorain, Cuyahoga, Medina, Wayne and Trumbull counties, prosecutors said. One of the residences, on East 130th Street in Cleveland, was owned by Branea Bryant's company, ADF3 Investments. The FBI and other agencies raided seven houses in the Cleveland area in August 2021, seizing more than a kilogram of fentanyl, guns and ammunition, high-speed money counters, drug presses, a vacuum-sealer used to package drugs and money, more than $68,000 in cash, jewelry, two Range Rovers and a Jaguar F-Type, federal prosecutors said. Brandon Bryant was one of 24 people charged in the case, which was investigated by the FBI and IRS with assistance from the ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, Ohio Stage Highway Patrol, Cleveland Police Department, Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office and multiple other law enforcement agencies. All 24 defendants in the case were convicted and sentenced. Fair got 35 years in federal prison, co-defendant Ramel Drew got 27 years and three months in prison, and Brenea Bryant received more than 24 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.