Three sentenced in connection with Iowa City heroin distribution

IOWA CITY - An Iowa City man police said to have supplied a majority of the heroin to Iowa City for a period of time and two of his co-conspirators have been sentenced to federal prison time.

On Aug. 29, 26-year-old Alfred L. Jackson was sentenced in Davenport to more than 15 years of prison time for conspiracy to distribute at least 100 grams of heroin. Two of his co-conspirators in the case, 45-year-old Jason Dawson and 49-year-old Curtis Kemp, were sentenced to 12 years and seven years, respectively.

According to Iowa City police officer and Drug Enforcement Administration task force member Jerry Blomgren, Jackson was the primary source of heroin in the Iowa City area for a number of years. One person police spoke with told investigators Jackson supplied him with three kilograms of heroin over a three-year period.

'Three kilos of heroin is an astronomical amount of heroin,” Blomgren told The Gazette earlier this year.

Blomgren said Dawson used a sophisticated system of color-coded plastic bags to distribute the heroin, allowing dealers and users to talk in code about buying and selling heroin.

Dawson and Kemp helped to distribute the heroin, according to Blomgren and the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

Blomgren said after Jackson and his associates were arrested, the number of heroin overdoses in the Iowa City area were greatly reduced.