A federal jury has convicted a Buffalo man – identified by prosecutors as a leader of a heroin and cocaine trafficking organization – of numerous charges while engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Following a four-week trial, jurors convicted Donte Walker, 30, of narcotics conspiracy, tampering with a witness and discharge of firearms causing death in furtherance of crimes of violence. He was also found guilty of drug trafficking crimes, including conspiracy to distribute heroin resulting in death.
Walker faces a mandatory life sentence in prison.
At a peak in his heroin distribution enterprise in 2015 and 2016, Walker was responsible for the daily distribution of hundreds of grams of heroin, prosecutors said.
Walker in 2013 was responsible for the distribution of heroin to a user who died, prosecutors said. In 2018, Walker lured a man to a site for a drug deal. Shots were fired and the man was found dead in a vacant lot near Winslow Avenue and Brooklyn Street, prosecutors said.
Walker is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 5 in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.
