By Associated Press - Friday, March 9, 2018

HALLTOWN, Mo. (AP) - A drug dealer has been ordered to spend 50 years in federal prison for the ambush killing of another dealer in rural southwest Missouri.

The U.S. attorney’s office says 23-year-old Yovanny Aroldo Mendivil-Balderrama was sentenced Thursday for the April 2016 killing of 24-year-old Oscar Adan Martinez-Gaxiola. Court documents say they supplied meth to Brooke Danielle Beckley, who wound up with a $44,000 drug debt after law enforcement raided her hotel room.

Beckley, now 21, was sentenced last month to 40 years in federal prison for working out an agreement with Mendivil-Balderrama with whom she was having a sexual affair. The deal was that if she killed Martinez-Gaxiola, she’d get more time to pay the debt and possibly get it lowered.

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She then recruited three people to help her kill Martinez-Gaxiola.

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