A former heroin dealer and one of his customers entered the final guilty pleas Wednesday in a string of recent federal cases tied to distribution of the drug.

Julia Dudley, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said she hoped the convictions would attract public attention.

"Heroin is definitely in Roanoke. We're hoping to bring awareness to it and to decrease the supply to the area," Dudley said.

Alvin Lewis "Chief" Macauley and Dorraine Kay "Dodi" Covington became the 10th and 11th defendants found guilty in recent heroin cases moving through U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Both pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute heroin, and Macauley also pleaded guilty to use of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking. Both face minimum 10-year prison terms at their Aug. 3 sentencings.

Macauley was described by Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis, who prosecuted the heroin cases, as one of three dealers who brought significant quantities of the drug to Roanoke from sources in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Covington was an addict who became a small-scale dealer to support her own habit, according to Wolthuis and to her own statements in court. For about two years starting in 2006, she would buy 20 to 30 bags of heroin from Macauley each week, Wolthuis said.

Covington's then-husband, Ralph Houson Covington, would then resell some of the heroin, and the couple would use the rest, Wolthuis said.

Ralph Covington pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to distribute heroin.

Speaking at Macauley's guilty plea hearing, Wolthuis said that in the spring of 2007, Macauley met Clifton Dwight "Lite" Lee, another of the upper-tier dealers in the case. Lee last month pleaded guilty to distribution and gun charges.

Wolthuis said Macauley and Lee became partners, traveling to New Jersey every week or two and buying 20 bricks of heroin each time. A brick contains 50 bags of heroin and would cost $250 or $300 in New Jersey. It would sell for twice that in Roanoke. If the heroin were sold as individual bags in Roanoke, profits would be further increased, Wolthuis said.

In August or September 2007, Macauley and Lee split, Wolthuis said. Soon Macauley was working with another defendant, Meghan Rae Jones, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to distribute heroin. With Jones as his driver and dealing partner, Macauley increased his heroin shipments to a weekly 40 to 60 bricks, Wolthuis said.

After a March 2008 traffic stop in New Jersey, Macauley was charged with drug possession and firearms violations. Then in December 2008, police raided the Covingtons' Roanoke County home, found heroin, and traced it back to Macauley. He was soon indicted in federal court.

Macauley's attorney, John Gregory of Salem, said a facet of his client's situation is that he still has not been sentenced on the New Jersey charges.

Gregory asked U.S. District Court Judge Glen Conrad if a federal prison sentence could run concurrently with whatever New Jersey time is imposed. This would mean, for example, that a five-year sentence from New Jersey and a 10-year federal sentence could be served at the same time.

Conrad said that since Macauley's New Jersey charges sprang from the same drug conspiracy as the federal charges, he had no problem making his sentence concurrent -- but that he could do that only if Macauley is sentenced in New Jersey first.

Conrad warned that he would not delay Macauley's sentencing.