Mitrel Anderson gets nearly 6 years for possessing meth

A La Crosse man, who beat a murder charge in court, is going to federal prison for a drug crime.

Mitrel Anderson is sentenced to five years, 11 months by U.S. District Judge James Peterson, along with four years of supervised release after that, for having more than 100 grams of meth.

The 30-year-old was carrying meth and a stolen gun when he was arrested after a 2016 traffic stop in Trempealeau County.

That was two years after a jury in La Crosse County acquitted Anderson in the 2013 stabbing death of DeMario Lee at the Cass Street Kwik Trip in La Crosse.

“After taking a life, I couldn’t get away from it,” Anderson said in court last week. “I used drugs heavily and took a bad path to a really dark place.

“I became the guy who killed the guy, and now if I get a ticket I’m on the front page of the paper.”

Earlier this year, Anderson pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell about three ounces of methamphetamine to an undercover officer in November 2016 in Centerville.