CAPE GIRARDEAU – A convicted felon from Poplar Bluff, Missouri who was caught with a gun after selling methamphetamine to investigators was sentenced Wednesday to 40 months in prison.
On Dec. 3, 2025, the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force and the Butler County Sheriff’s Department conducted a court-approved search of the home of Dorothy Mae Neeley. Neeley had recently sold a small amount of meth to someone working with the Task Force. She was arrested on an unrelated warrant and turned over about 5 grams of a mixture containing meth, according to her plea agreement. She also told investigators that she had a firearm in her bedroom, and they found a disassembled sawed-off shotgun. Neeley is a convicted felon, having been imprisoned four times, and is thus barred from possessing a firearm.
Neeley, 50, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau in May to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force and the Butler County Sheriff’s Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Willis prosecuted the case.