Son in father-son drug ring gets eight years

“Like father, like son...” Thomas Draxe’s 1616 writing in “Bibliotheca,” played out Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Columbus after a son was sentenced for his role in a fatherson methamphetamine trafficking operation.

Eric Dewayne Turner Jr., 33, of the Brentnell neighborhood on Columbus’ Northeast Side, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Wednesday for his conviction on charges of possessing and distributing methamphetamine.

Federal prosecutors say Turner, Jr. conspired with his father, Eric Dewayne Turner, Sr. and others from September 2022 through January 2023 to distribute and possess with intent to distribute substantial amounts of methamphetamine, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus.

Turner Sr., 50, of the Forest Park East neighborhood on the city’s Northeast Side, was sentenced Jan. 16 to 24 years in prison for distributing methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute, and illegally possessing a firearm with a prior felony conviction. He had pleaded guilty to the charges in May 2023.

The elder Turner sat at the helm of the drug trafficking organization and sold substantial amounts of methamphetamine to undercover agents on four separate occasions. The four purchases, including a fifth one that was not completed, amounted to eight kilograms of pure methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.

Turner, Jr. personally participated in two of the drug transactions, transporting packages of methamphetamine for his father to sell to the undercover agents, prosecutors said.

When Turner Jr. was arrested, he had more than $16,000 in suspected drug money, prosecutors said. @Shahidmeighan smeighan@dispatch.com