Man gets eight years in prison for dealing drugs while awaiting trial for his role in a murder while he was awaiting trial on a gun charge

A federal judge yesterday sentenced Anthony Howard, 34, to eight years in federal prison for selling heroin to an informant working with the feds last July - which is on top of the 18 to 20 years in state prison he received in November as a sentence for his role in a fatal drive-by shooting in Egleston Square in 2013.

When Howard helped Rasheem Christian kill Brianna Bigby - in an apparent attempt to murder her boyfriend, a member of a gang with which Howard's and Christian's Greenwood Street gang was feuding - he was awaiting trial on a gun charge. Earlier on the day of the murder, police say, Howard allegedly shot two members of another rival gang, from Thetford Avenue and Wainwright Park.

He got nabbed selling heroin to the informant after a judge ordered him released last year while awaiting trial for the Bigby murder. The US Attorney's office reports that after his arrest on the drug charges, federal agents with a search warrant found fentanyl and several guns in his apartment.

Howard pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute and distribution of heroin, one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in February.