ASHLAND —
Three of the defendants in what authorities say was a Florida-to-Kentucky pill-trafficking conspiracy are scheduled to be sentenced next week in federal court.
One of them took the somewhat unusual step of writing a letter to the presiding judge in the case seeking leniency. It’s common for family members and friends to send such letters on behalf of defendants, but fairly uncommon for defendants to do so themselves.
Darnell DeShawn Butler and Leonard E. Vaughn, both of Ashland, and Christina Mayhone of Huntington will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning beginning at 10 a.m. Monday.
Each of the defendants face up to 20 years in prison. However, application of federal sentencing guidelines likely will result in them receiving far lesser sentences.
In an eight-page missive to Bunning dated Aug. 30, Vaughn, 41, claims his role in the conspiracy was a minor one and that he believes it’s unfair he is being treated the same as his co-defendants, “who have way more pill count totals and more serious charges.”
Vaughn maintains his role was limited to making some phone calls and setting up a meeting between one of his co-defendants and a man he met in a drug treatment after-care program who turned out be an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to Vaughn, the informant wanted him to set him up with someone who might be interested in buying some oxycodone, claiming he was in trouble because owed money to a drug dealer in Detroit and needed to get the funds to pay him back. He said he at first brushed off the man’s requests because he was trying to turn his life around, but the informant was persistent.
“(I) made this one mistake of thinking I was helping someone, which in turned out to bite me in the rear,” he wrote.
Vaughn also said he believed he was being punished for not cooperating with the government in its investigation. But, he said the reason he didn’t cooperate was simple — he had no additional information to offer.
The ringleader of the organization, Richard Allen “Rick” Young of Fort Myers, Fla., was sentenced last month to 13 years in prison.
Two other defendants in the case, Charlie Nicole Angell and Rico Devaughn Tillman, both of Ashland, also have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Angell’s is scheduled for Oct. 9; Tillman’s for Nov. 13.
Eldridge Carnell “Mookie” Primus, a Florida resident who authorities say supplied Young with pills, is the only defendant in the case who hasn’t pleaded guilty.
Young was a major supplier of pills to local drug traffickers, including his co-defendants. According to court records, he funneled roughly 45,0000 oxycodone pills from Florida to Kentucky between November 2008 and February of this year.
Young supplied thousands of a pills a month to a Boyd County-based pill-trafficking operation headed by Anthony “Tony” McKenzie up until the time McKenzie was arrested. On Sept. 17, 2010, McKenzie and one of his associates, Charles Meadows, returned from a meeting with Young in Georgia. Young supplied them with about 4,000 pills at a price of $18 to $20 per pill. A later search of McKenzie’s residence resulted in the seizure of $30,519, which represented the proceeds from the sale of the pills.
McKenzie and seven other defendants all subsequently pleaded guilty to federal charges and were sentenced to prison terms.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.
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