Ex-elementary school teacher gets 30 months’ probation for role in cross-country coke ring
A former elementary school teacher in the Ringgold district was sentenced Thursday to probation for her role in one of the largest cocaine rings ever prosecuted in Western Pennsylvania.
U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak imposed a term of 30 months on Renee Kinder.
Kinder, a Donora native in her mid-40s who taught grade-school children, was a bit player in the crosscountry coke ring that federal agents say was led by Don Juan Mendoza, a felon from Jacksonville, Fla., with ties to Mexican drug cartels, and Jamie Lightfoot Jr., of Penn Hills, who was Mendoza’s top local lieutenant and distributor.
Kinder had been among some 40 people indicted after an FBI wiretap investigation and pleaded guilty last year to possession with intent to deliver. She was among the first defendants to plead in the case.
Kinder admitted that she traveled to the home of another accused conspirator in the ring, Brandon Thomas, of Donora, to buy cocaine. She then distributed it among other ring members, according to her plea.
Her lawyer and her friends, many of whom wrote letters on her behalf, said she had led a life of hard work and good deeds as a reading teacher always willing to help students in need, especially those from bad family circumstances. They said her descent into the drug world was a one-time aberration that does not reflect the person she is and said she does not deserve prison.
Judge Hornak agreed. Cases against many of the others in the ring are pending, although Lightfoot, the local ringleader, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
The FBI said Lightfoot, the son of a convicted drug dealer, and his brother Deaubre distributed massive amounts of cocaine across the region, particularly in Fayette County, supplied by Mendoza’s contacts in California and Atlanta.
A two-year wiretap investigation by the FBI and state police revealed that the ring shipped drugs in an RV from Los Angeles to Penn Hills and also in a van from Atlanta to Penn Hills.
The exact amount of coke the ring dealt isn’t known, but at Jamie Lightfoot’s plea, he admitted to distributing between 50 and 150 kilograms.
In terms of volume, the ring ranks among the top two or three largest drug operations ever prosecuted in this part of the state.
The investigation culminated on Nov. 5, 2017, when investigators who had been tracking the RV on its drive from California to Pittsburgh watched it pull into Lightfoot’s driveway on Harvest Drive in a secluded part of Penn Hills.
Agents and police took those involved into custody. Inside the RV, they found 52 kilos of coke, 85 pounds of marijuana, an AK-47 and another gun. They also seized about $1 million in cash from Lightfoot’s house.