The US Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon has announced that three federal prison sentences have been imposed in separate criminal cases following multi-agency drug trafficking investigations in and around Medford.
James Michael Cody Whelchel of Carson, California, was sentenced last week to 130 months in federal prison and five years of supervised release. Terril Jacob Boss of Reno, Nevada, was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison and five years of supervised release. Earl Richard Shamblin of Medford was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.
Investigators said Whelchel -- a known drug trafficker with a lengthy criminal history -- was dealing drugs in the Medford area while running his operation from a local motel in July 2021. After observing multiple individuals come and go from his motel room, detectives arrested him. A search of his motel room uncovered more than two and half pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, $51,000 in cash and two firearms. Two more guns and narcotics were found inside his vehicle.
In July 2020, law enforcement obtained information that Boss was at a fast-food parking lot in White City while in possession of methamphetamine and a firearm. He reached for a firearm and was shot twice by responding deputies. He was taken to a local hospital, treated and then booked into the Jackson County Jail. Three days later, investigators located and seized quantities of methamphetamine and heroin in his truck and a large zipper bag with meth and heroin concealed in the gas tank of his motorcycle.
Between November 2019 and January 2021, law enforcement conducted multiple purchases of heroin from Shamblin, a known Jackson County drug trafficker. In February 2021, investigators arrested him and found digital scales, drug packaging material, records of drug transactions and more than $4,000 in cash in his RV and on his person. The next day, investigators obtained a recorded jail call on which the suspect coordinated with other individuals to move and conceal a large sum of cash and bury heroin in the backyard of his residence.
