Jury acquits pair in drug trial
A federal court jury on Friday acquitted a father and his son on conspiracy charges in connection with a large-scale drug ring, which operated inside the U.S. prison system and was run by a convicted Moon drug dealer who is awaiting sentencing.
The jury returned not guilty verdicts for Omari Patton, of Wilkinsburg, a convicted heroin dealer, and his son, Dashawn Burley, of Monroeville.
The trial began Tuesday before U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan.
Prosecutors had accused Mr. Burley of smuggling synthetic cannabinoids, sometimes called K2, to his incarcerated father at the federal prison in Fort Dix, N.J.
Lawyers for the two men attacked the government’s case by challenging whether their clients had intent to form a conspiracy, which prosecutors had to prove.
Attorney Paul Jubas, who represented Patton, 43, said the issue for his client was whether the jury believed he had knowledge and intent to distribute and was truly a member of the conspiracy. He said jurors asked a few questions about intent and came back with the not guilty verdict shortly after.
“Both Mr. Patton and myself are very pleased with the verdict,” he said. “Mr. Patton remained steadfast throughout the case that he was not guilty of the crimes alleged. Although the feds have an impressive conviction rate at trial, a jury of 12 Western Pennsylvanians sent a clear message vindicating Mr. Patton.”
Michael DeMatt, who represented Mr. Burley, argued that his client did not knowingly conspire to possess with intent because he didn’t know that what he was sending to his dad was a controlled substance.
Mr. Burley knew it was K2,
but Mr. DeMatt said that the regulations governing K2 are confusing to the point where some law enforcement officers are not aware of what is and is not considered a controlled substance. K2, he argued, is more of an “umbrella term” covering numerous chemicals, some controlled and some not.
He said that he and his client are “obviously very pleased with the result, and I am glad that my client can finally move on with his life after having this hanging over his head for more than three years.”
The verdict represents a rare loss for the U.S. attorney’s office, which had previously convicted the ringleader of the gang and a top lieutenant.
The conviction rate in the federal court system is about 95%.
Patton and Mr. Burley were among 27 people indicted in 2019 in Pittsburgh on charges related to an enterprise that dealt drugs across the region and smuggled drug-saturated paper into federal prisons for inmates to smoke or eat.
Prosecutors said inmates paid for the paper with prison accounts, with the money transferred from those accounts to the accounts of inmate dealers.
The U.S. attorney’s office had said Patton, while an inmate at Fort Dix, was among them.
Patton was once an underling to two local drug lords, Oliver Beasley and Donald Lyles, who in the late 1990s and early 2000s ran what then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called the largest cocaine and heroin ring in the history of WesternPennsylvania.
Patton went to trial and lost and has over the years filed numerous motions for early release on grounds that the government incorrectly said he dealt 10 kilos of heroin. He said he only dealt one.
Despite the U.S. attorney’s loss, the prison drug ring prosecution has yielded numerous convictions in recent years.
Most notably, a jury in December found accused ringleader Noah Landfried of Moon guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute drugs, conspiracy to launder drug money and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and heroin.
The jury also convicted Michel Cercone of Sewickley, a former real estate agent, on similar charges, along with Anthony Smith of McKeesport. They are awaitingsentencing.
Other high-profile ring members have pleaded guilty.
Among them was Robert Korbe, of Indiana Township, an imprisoned heroin dealer whose wife had fatally shot a Pittsburgh FBI agent in 2008. Korbe was sentenced in 2020 to another four years on top of the 300-month term he was already serving.