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Federal prosecutors have agreed to pursue charges against a Portland man repeatedly accused of dealing drugs, police say.
William Stevenson has gained a name for himself, not for the quality or quantity of drugs that he moves, but rather for his persistence. After cops repeatedly caught him selling fentanyl in downtown Portland, he’d be released from jail and do it again, they say, sometimes within days.
WW reported last summer about cops’ efforts to stop Stevenson’s alleged behavior. The failure of the court system to hold drug dealers accountable has gained attention from state lawmakers, who are pressuring court officials to change their policies.
Yesterday, after Stevenson was arrested for the 11th time, federal prosecutors stepped in.
The Portland Police Bureau’s bike squad posted on its Instagram account that it had caught Stevenson with a gun and a bag of fentanyl on the corner of Northwest 5th Avenue and Everett Street in Old Town. He had seven outstanding arrest warrants on gun and drug charges. (Last time he was caught, in September, with 20 grams of fentanyl in pills and powder, as well as $158 in cash, he told police “he carries the firearm for self-protection and insisted he is an addict, not dealer,” according to an affidavit filed by prosecutors.)
Stevenson was booked in Multnomah County jail—and this time, he stayed there. That’s because, like in the case of another alleged drug dealer whom cops struggled to keep behind bars, federal officials intervened. The U.S. Marshals Service ordered him held, pending federal charges.
This morning, PPB shared on Instagram a photo of a federal arrest warrant charging Stevenson with drug dealing in Portland over a nearly yearlong period starting last March. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed that a legal complaint will be filed later today.
“We are very happy to work with our federal partners to hold drug and gun offenders accountable in the City of Portland,” the Instagram post states.