Heroin Trafficker Hit With 25-Year Sentence

Defendant entered plea morning of jury selection

A Panama City man arrested by Bay County sheriff’s deputies who found nearly 29 grams of heroin during a search of his home has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading no contest just before a jury was picked to hear the case, State Attorney Larry Basford announced. Zavon “Nay-Nay” Palmore, 30, was arrested March 23, 2021 and charged with Trafficking in Heroin (More than 28 grams).

Circuit Court Judge Brantley Clark accepted the no contest plea, adjudicated the defendant guilty, and sentenced him to a minimum-mandatory 25 years under Florida’s enhanced drug trafficking laws. The defendant was also fined $500,000.

Prosecutor Frank Sullivan was prepared to present witnesses and evidence proving that sheriff’s investigators served a search warrant on Palmore’s home March 23, 2021, as part of a narcotics investigation.

“Fentanyl gets a lot of the attention lately, and rightly so, but heroin is also an extremely dangerous drug,” Sullivan said. “We cannot, and will not, tolerate it being distributed in our community.”

Deputies found an open shoe box on the restroom floor containing paraphernalia and almost 29 grams of heroin. A gram of the drug can be sold as 10 separate .1 gram doses.
Basford thanked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for the work on its case that led to the search warrant and recovery of the potentially fatal drugs.

For more information, contact Mike Cazalas at mike.cazalas@sa14.fl.gov, or call 850-381-7454.