A Hungry Horse felon with a history of drug use has denied dealing methamphetamine after being charged in federal district court with four felonies.

In U.S. District Court in Great Falls on April 11, Lavonnie Jean McManus, 39, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and two counts of distribution of methamphetamine.

McManus was indicted by a jury on April 7.

She faces up to $10 million in fines, life imprisonment and five years supervised release if she is convicted.

According to an unsealed indictment, federal authorities accuse McManus of dealing more than one pound of methamphetamine in Glacier County between June 2015 and January 2016. She also is accused of dealing more than 50 grams of meth in Flathead and Glacier counties on Jan. 14, 2016.

Most details in the case are sealed until the upcoming trial.

McManus has been appointed a public defender in the case, which was investigated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

McManus also goes by the alias Lavonnie Jean Crater, according to state records, and is currently on state probation for possessing dangerous drugs in October 2014.

McManus was given a five-year suspended sentence by Flathead District Judge Heidi Ulbricht in June 2015, the same month the alleged drug dealing in the federal case was alleged to have started.

In that case, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper stopped McManus as she traveled U.S. 2 in Flathead County at 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2014, because of an inoperable headlight.

The trooper noted that McManus never bothered to give him a driver’s license when he asked for one and did not have any insurance registration.

She gave the trooper the false name, Brittany Icard, and let law enforcement search her information before she confessed to lying about who she was.

When she was booked into the Flathead County Detention Center a paper bundle fell from her hoodie and she told jailers that it contained methamphetamine. A field test confirmed it was methamphetamine.

McManus was being held in the Glacier County Jail as of Tuesday morning.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.