DAYTON — A Dayton man was sentenced Thursday, Oct. 15, in U.S. District Court to 264 months — 22 years — in federal prison for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced.
Marcus Gullatte Sr., 38, of Dayton, received the sentence from Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose. Federal prosecutors described Gullatte as a career offender with an escalating pattern of drug trafficking over the past decade and multiple drug convictions.
According to court documents, throughout the summer of 2024 Gullatte acquired bulk amounts of fentanyl and methamphetamine from a source of supply in the Dayton area and then resold the drugs for cash. The dealing happened while Gullatte was on federal supervised release from an earlier case.
Gullatte has two prior federal drug trafficking convictions, for which he was previously sentenced to 36 months and 60 months in prison. Prosecutors said the new trafficking while under court supervision was central to the case and to the length of the sentence imposed Thursday.
A federal grand jury indicted Gullatte in November 2024, and he pleaded guilty in June. Because he pleaded guilty, the case was resolved without a trial, and Thursday’s hearing set the punishment under the advisory federal sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors the court is required to consider.
The sentence was announced by Dominick S. Gerace II, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Jason Cromartie, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati Division. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s deputy criminal chief.
Fentanyl remains a driver of overdose deaths across the Miami Valley, and federal officials regularly pair trafficking prosecutions in Dayton with warnings about the drug’s potency and its presence in counterfeit pills and other street drugs. Cases are often taken federally when investigators tie local dealing to repeat-offender histories and bulk supply networks, as prosecutors said happened here. Gullatte’s 22-year term is among the longer federal drug sentences handed down in the Dayton area this year, reflecting both the quantities involved and his record while on supervised release.