Prison time for man who repeated brother’s mistake

Kenneth Thompson-Hines took over cocaine sales after brother was imprisoned

WEST CHESTER >> Taking over his brother’s business proved to be a mistake for Kenneth R. Thompson-Hines.

According to a criminal complaint filed by a member of the Chester County Municipal Drug Task Force, Thompson-Hines brother, Brandon Dillard-Walker, had been identified by a confidential informant as his source of cocaine in July 2015. The informant said he would routinely get telephone calls from Dillard-Walker concerning cocaine sales.

But when Dillard-Walker was confined to Chester County Prison in early November 2015, a new voice came on the phone — Thompson Hines’s. So the informant started doing business with him, all under the watchful eyes of the task force and West Goshen Detective Darren Sedlak.

On Wednesday, Thompson-Hines, 25, of Coatesville was sentenced by Common Pleas Judge James P. MacElree II to four to eight years in state prison, plus five years probation. He had pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.

The three sales took place on Nov. 11, 2015, Nov. 20, 2015, and Dec. 3, 2015.

According to Sedlak’s arrest affidavit, each sale took place in approximately the same fashion. The informant would be contacted by Thompson-Hines and asked if he wanted cocaine. The informant would set the time and place of the transaction, and was given pre-recorded bills by Sedlak or the task force officers. The informant would then purchase the drugs, and turn them over to Sedlak.

When the informant met Thompson-Hines the first time, he purchased 71 grams of powder cocaine from him. The second time, he bought 61 grams of cocaine. The third time, Thompson-Hines gave him a mixture of crushed aspirin and caffeine pills. But since he led the informant to believe it was cocaine, he was still charged with selling the drugs.

Thompson-Hines was arrested after the third buy, and has been held in county prison since.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Kevin Pierce, of the DA’s Drug Unit. West Chester attorney Anthony Hasson represented Thompson-Hines.