BILLINGS) — A Florida man pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal drug trafficking charge filed after he was stopped for speeding in south-central Montana and a state trooper found 78 pounds (35 kilograms) of methamphetamine in his rented minivan, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Montana said.
Nichols James Imhoff, 30, of Cape Coral, Florida, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison for possession with intent to distribute meth. A sentencing date has not been set.
Imhoff was arrested in February after he was stopped by a Montana Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 90 near Columbus. The trooper’s K-9 alerted to drugs in the vehicle and officers seized the equivalent of more than 280,000 doses of meth. Tests showed it was 98% pure, court records said.
The seizure was “by far the largest amount of meth we’ve seen in a single traffic stop,” John Barnes, a spokesperson for the Montana Department of Justice, said at the time.