• Advocate River parishes bureau
• Published: Nov 4, 2009 - Page: 3B

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A federal judge in New Orleans sentenced a major Lafourche Parish drug figure Tuesday to 16 years in prison on a crack cocaine distribution conviction, U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutors and parish sheriff’s deputies said.

Travis Bradley, 29, of Raceland, had pleaded guilty in November 2007 to possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base, federal prosecutors in New Orleans said in a statement Tuesday.

Bradley admitted in the plea to distributing 204 grams of cocaine base and 125 grams of cocaine hydrochloride in October 2006, prosecutors said.

Lafourche Parish sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Lesley Hill Peters said Tuesday that Bradley was a major player in the illegal drug distribution business in central Lafourche.

Under the November 2007 agreement, Bradley pleaded to the distribution charge in exchange for future testimony and that prosecutors would not seek additional charges.

Bradley had an April 2005 state district court cocaine possession conviction and was on probation at the time of his arrest, according to court filings.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents lined up a buy with Bradley in Raceland in October 2006 through a confidential informant and had the transaction under surveillance, court filings say.

Agents arrested Bradley in November 2006 in Houma and seized $1,100 that the informant gave Bradley for the drugs, a factual basis filed in connection with the plea agreement says.

Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish sheriff’s narcotics agents also investigated the case, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday in New Orleans, U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt gave Bradley 10 years of supervised release after prison, prosecutors said.