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Sentencing hearings are being held in U.S. District Court this week for some of the 25 defendants charged in relation to a Cedartown-based drug ring that prosecutors say had buyers stacked up “like a deli line.”

Philip Wayne Erwin of Cedartown, who has signed a guilty plea admitting to using a gun during drug trafficking, was sentenced Monday morning to serve five years in prison.

Monday afternoon, three Alabama men appeared before U.S. District Judge Harold L. Murphy in Rome to receive their sentences: seven years and three months for Jerry Edwards of Borden Springs, five years and three months for Charles Motes of Jacksonville and six years and eight months for David Lee Bell of Muscadine Junction.

All three have pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to possess controlled substances with the intent to distribute, a charge that normally carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, but they received reduced punishments in exchange for their acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with the government.

The charges stem for an indictment issued in April 2005 implicating 25 men and women in a drug ring that allegedly circulated large quantities of methamphetamine, marijuana and prescription drugs — namely Xanax, an antidepressant, and Lorcet, a painkiller — between July 2001 and January 2005. The drugs, including at least 600 pounds of methamphetamines, were allegedly taken from Cedartown to Northeast Alabama for further distribution and resale.

Five of the defendants named in the case are still at large, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Dammers. The remaining 20 defendants have all pleaded guilty.

Sentencings for 11 other defendants are scheduled for today and Wednesday.

Meanwhile, still awaiting trial are 30 alleged members of the same gang accused of a number of other crimes: murder, arson, racketeering, possession and trafficking of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute, kidnapping, extortion and the trafficking and harboring of illegal immigrants.

Among the alleged offenses are the March 2003 double murder of Truitt Jerome “T.J.” Agan and Christopher Kane Fortenberry in Floyd County and the September 2003 triple murder of Cesar Juarez Vasquez, Arturo Torres Ventura and an unidentified woman in Polk County.