A man found guilty of Trafficking in Amphetamine and two charges related to his arrest was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday after being found guilty as charged, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Calvin Lavor Johnson, 36, of Panama City Beach, was found guilty of Trafficking in Amphetamine (28 grams or more), Tampering with Physical Evidence, and Resisting an Officer without Violence.
Circuit Court Judge Dustin Stephenson sentenced Johnson to 25 years on the trafficking charge, and 5 years consecutive to that for the tampering charge. The trafficking charge also carries a minimum/mandatory 7 years in prison. Judge Stephenson also ordered a $100,000 fine.
The defendant twice before has been to prison and most recently was released in September 2022 – about two years before these charges – for Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Sell.
“Florida is tough on drug trafficking for a reason,” Prosecutor Morgan McAfee said. “He was only out of prison for two years before he was found with a trafficking amount of methamphetamine. The escalation of possession to trafficking is concerning.”
In addition to the drugs, McAfee noted the defendant’s 5-month-old child was in the home.
McAfee presented evidence and testimony from Bay County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Division investigator to prove the State’s case. The jury took less than 30 minutes to find the defendant guilty.
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McAfee showed that the Bay County Sheriff’s Office’s SID obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s home following an investigation. They served the warrant Nov. 19, 2024. Inside the residence deputies found an assortment of colored pills that appeared to be Ecstasy, but which were determined by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to be Methamphetamine.
Pressed pills were found in a bag and in the bathroom around the toilet, where it appeared someone had been flushing them. As investigators searched, the defendant admitted to using Ecstasy, said the drugs that were found belonged to him, and that he had flushed what he claimed to be Adderall down the toilet.
Basford thanked the BCSO SID unit for its proactive work in stopping the drugs from hitting the streets.
For more information, contact Mike Cazalas at mike.cazalas@sa14.fl.gov, or call 850-381-7454.