Chef gets prison term for drug charge

By Linda Cicoira

A local chef was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court, with all but four years and seven months suspended, for possession with intent to distribute 27 fentanyl tablets that were pressed into the shape of another pill to disguise them in January of 2024.

“This fentanyl business is dangerous,” Judge Lynwood W. Lewis Jr. told the defendant, 32-year-old Devonte Leshawn Davis, of Airport Drive, in Melfa. “It kills people. “I’m not going to take it lightly. If you get caught dealing drugs again, you will get 20 years just on the probation violation.”

When released, Davis will be on three years of supervised probation and five years of good behavior.

Davis testified. “First, I want you to know, your honor, that I do take full responsibility,” he said. “My past does not define who I am today …. I now have a fresh perspective… I plan on finishing school.” He apologized for the crime.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Baker said the defendant’s “history has been long and continuous. He is on a very bad path.” Baker said Davis needs to receive “additional time to make sure he gets the message.”

Defense lawyer Shannon Dunham said her client has spent 285 hours taking classes since he has been incarcerated. “Devonte is intelligent, but he’s a follower,” she said. “He has gotten the picture loud and clear.”

The defendant could have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison for the fentanyl conviction.

Baker previously stated that when Davis’ cell phone was searched, interactions regarding drug transactions were found, with a plan for him to go to Maryland and get more drugs.

Davis pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in 2012 after a first-degree murder charge was not prosecuted against him. Davis was 18 when the victim, 27-year-old Belarmino Escalante, of Greenbush, a Guatemalan native, was gunned down in July 2011. Escalante was waiting at the former Godwin’s Produce, on Lankford Highway in the Nelsonia area, for a ride to work when the incident occurred. Davis admitted to being in the car with the assailant who shot out the window, killing the father of four.

More recently, Davis pleaded guilty to felony credit card theft in Northampton County.

Indictments alleging the distribution of between an ounce and five pounds of marijuana and possession of another Schedule I or II drug with intent to manufacture were bought at the same time as the fentanyl count and were not prosecuted.