A St. Louis man who laughed off the lethality of the fentanyl pills he was peddling will spend nearly 20 years in federal prison. Antone Little, known on the streets as “Ant,” was sentenced to 235 months behind bars after a series of undercover stings and a police raid uncovered a massive cache of drugs and firearms at his residence.
The case against Little began in March 2023 when a confidential informant tipped off St. Louis police that narcotics were being sold from a home on Kennerly Avenue.
For two weeks, investigators watched as Little met customers at his side door, taking cash and ducking back inside to grab supplies. After a successful $40 undercover buy of crack cocaine, detectives raided the house.
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Inside, they found a small arsenal—a 9mm handgun, a shotgun, and a revolver—alongside tools of the trade like pill cappers and blenders coated in white residue. The biggest find was in Little’s bedroom: 1,633 yellow tablets stamped to look like 30mg Oxycodone. Testing later revealed they actually contained over 800 grams of fentanyl.
During his initial interview with Detective Ryan Drago, Little was blunt about the deception. According to police reports, Little admitted the pills were fakes laced with fentanyl and meth.
“Hey, if you are dumb enough to believe I am selling Oxycodone at this cheap of a price, then you stupid as hell,” Little told the investigator. “If they overdose, then oh well. That is part of the game.”
Little later tried to walk back those comments in court, claiming he was under the influence of heroin during the interview and was merely holding the bag for a homeless man named “Kevin.” The judge didn’t buy the story, calling Little’s testimony “dodgy” and inconsistent.
On appeal, Little’s lawyers fought a sentencing enhancement that added extra time for “knowingly misrepresenting” fentanyl as another drug. They argued there was no proof he actually sold the fake pills to anyone.
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The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument today, noting that the sheer volume of pills, the markings on them, and Little’s own statements about the “clientele base” proved he was marketing them.
While the appeals court upheld his 19-year prison term, it did hand Little one small victory. The district court had originally banned Little from receiving federal benefits for the rest of his life. The appellate judges vacated that part of the order, noting that while Little intended to sell drugs, his specific conviction was for possession with intent to distribute, which doesn’t trigger a permanent lifetime ban under federal law.
Despite the technical change to his benefits eligibility, the core of the sentence remains. The court emphasized the “unique lethality” of fentanyl and the danger Little posed by protecting his supply with illegal firearms.
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