A total of 16 individuals were charged in 2020 in connection with a methamphetamine ring run out of a Grand Valley location known as “The Farm.”

Those cases march forward as one defendant entered a guilty plea this week while another has been sentenced to 60 months in federal prison.

The plea was entered by an Erie woman, Sarah Umanita Bloom, 31, who pleaded guilty before District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter.

Baxter set sentencing for Nov. 18 and Department of Justice officials note that the law provides a total sentence of up to life in prison.

The Department of Justice previously detailed the scope of the operation.

“From mid-2018 through the early part of 2020, Carina Tucker, Gail Flick and Anthony Stufflebeam managed a drug distribution network primarily out of a residence known as ‘The Farm,'” a memo in one of the cases states, “that pumped a steady stream of methamphetamine from Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania into Warren, Venango, Crawford and Forest counties.”

The case started with a local Warren County Drug Task Force investigation at “The Farm,” which is located at 530 Hunter School Road.

“During the height of the network’s activity,” prosecutors detail in the memo, “the members of the (drug trafficking organization) trafficked an estimated one hundred pounds or more of methamphetamine repackaged and distributed out to rural residences.”

Prosecutors say that Tucker and Glick “would typically have 6-9 ‘trustees’ who would ultimately be responsible for individual sales of methamphetamine to end users.”

Kim Oakes, one of the named defendants, was sentenced to 60 months in federal custody on June 29.

The DOJ states in a memo that Oakes “would be best categorized as a mid- to high-level runner who assisted Tucker distrib(uting) methamphetamine for a period of several months.”

Her sentencing memo asserts that she was a “minor participant” that provided “company and support” for Tucker, her cousin, and Flick.

“She played this role, as a tag-along on drug runs to Ohio,” her attorney stated, “in exchange for methamphetamine, which she used to fuel her own addiction.”

Her council noted that she has been using methamphetamine for 30 years and that “it’s a wonder that she’s still alive.”

“The fact remains,” the DOJ asserted, that Oakes “participated in a conspiracy to transport and traffic a dramatically large quantity of methamphetamine which was destined for further distribution into a community ill-suited to handle its corrosive effects.”