A Ware County inmate wasn’t going to let metal gates bar him from committing crimes.
A federal court on Wednesday tacked on 18 years to the sentence Kevin Bristol Patterson was already serving in Ware Penitentiary, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Bob Page said. Patterson will now be transferred to a federal prison instead of the state facility in Waycross.
Officials called the 35-year-old a career criminal who distributed methamphetamine and heroin both inside and outside of prison.
Patterson used a contraband cellphone to set up drug deals, conspiring with two other inmates to deal 649 grams of meth and 334 grams of heroin, Page said.
“This case represents another example of the dangers that contraband cellphones inside of the prison system pose to our citizens outside the prison,” U.S. Attorney John Horn said in a news release.
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Co-defendant Alex Mauricio Altamirano, 26, who is also an inmate at Ware State Prison, connected Patterson to 30-year-old Denis Miguel Pineda, Altamirano’s nephew and an Atlanta drug trafficker, Page said.
Patterson introduced Pineda to a drug buyer, who was a former inmate working with police.
For his role in connecting buyer to seller, Patterson expected to earn $500 every time a deal was made, Page said.
The meth and heroin were sold in five separate transactions between July 2014 and October 2015. Police stopped any narcotics from hitting public streets, Page said.
Patterson pleaded guilty in August 2016, while Pineda and Altamirano were convicted in May 2016.
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