District Attorney J. Collin Sims announces that on Wednesday (July 8, 2026), the Honorable Judge Richard Swartz sentenced 46-year-old John Silas Joiner, Jr. of Covington, Louisiana, to a mandatory term of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. The sentencing follows Joiner’s unanimous conviction by a St. Tammany Parish jury on May 22, 2026, where he was found guilty on 15 total counts spanning narcotics, weapons, flight, and resisting arrest charges.
In addition to the mandatory life sentence for the fentanyl trafficking charge, Judge Swartz handed down multiple individual terms ranging from 1 to 15 years for the remaining 14 counts, ordering all sentences to run concurrently. Furthermore, Assistant District Attorneys Iain Dover and Christina Fisher, who prosecuted the case, note that the state intends to file a multiple-offender bill under Louisiana’s Habitual Offender Statute, which would subject the defendant to additional statutory sentencing increases.
"Today’s life sentence ensures that a dangerous repeat offender will never again be able to poison our neighborhoods or compromise the safety of our children," District Attorney Collin Sims said following the hearing. "This defendant chose to repeatedly traffic lethal volumes of fentanyl and run a clandestine pill press right in a home where young children lived. I am grateful to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office for their thorough investigations and to ADAs Iain Dover and Christina Fisher for their exceptional work from trial to final sentencing."
The series of convictions stem from two separate law enforcement operations conducted by the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office (STPSO) in 2023. The first took place in January 2023 during a traffic stop, during which Joiner resisted arrest, struck a detective, and briefly fled on foot. A search of his vehicle uncovered 450 dosage units of fentanyl, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, a digital scale, brass knuckles, and an AR-style 9mm pistol equipped with a 50-round drum magazine.
The second investigation unfolded in September 2023 after authorities intercepted a jail video call between Joiner and his co-defendant, Amanda Flocke, 40. The video depicted Flocke counting thousands of illicit fentanyl pills on a kitchen table in the immediate presence of minor children. A subsequent search warrant executed at their Mandeville residence revealed 2,746 counterfeit blue "M30" fentanyl tablets, crystal methamphetamine, pharmaceutical pills, and a clandestine manufacturing laboratory setup in the garage used to press fraudulent ecstasy tablets. Flocke previously pleaded guilty on May 8, 2026, to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and was sentenced to 30 years in the Department of Corrections.
The concurrent sentences imposed by Judge Swartz today include:
- Possession with intent to distribute less than 28 grams of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance over 250 grams - Life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole
- Creation or operation of a clandestine laboratory for the unlawful manufacture of a controlled dangerous substance - 10 years
- Possession with intent to distribute less than 28 grams of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance - 10 years
- Possession with intent to distribute less than 28 grams of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance - 10 years
- Possession with intent to distribute less than 28 grams or more of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance - 15 years
- Transactions involving proceeds from drug offenses - 10 years
- Illegal carrying of weapons while in possession of a CDS - 10 years
- Possession of firearm or carrying concealed weapon by a person convicted of certain felonies -10 years
- Simple escape - 1 year
- Possession of less than two (2) grams of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance - 2 years
- Possession of a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance less than 2 grams - 2 years
- Possession with intent to distribute less than twenty-eight (28) grams of a Schedule I controlled dangerous substance - 10 years
- Transactions involving proceeds from drug offenses - 10 years
- Possession of fentanyl - less than two grams - 2 years
- Illegal carrying of weapons while in possession of a CDS - 10 years
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