Kansas killer ran Wichita drug ring from Oklahoma prison cell, indictment alleges
A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday says an Oklahoma inmate who killed a Kansas correctional officer in 1993 is the brains behind an extensive criminal enterprise that sold methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and marijuana in Wichita last year.
From his Oklahoma State Penitentiary prison cell, Travis E. Knighten “directed the movements” of nearly two dozen underlings living in Wichita using calls and text messages sent from contraband cellphones, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a news release announcing the 55-count indictment. The 47-year-old would receive information via the phones and then coordinate the time and place his co-conspirators outside prison walls would meet up with drug suppliers, the news release says.
Members of his network talked in code to avoid suspicion and referred to drugs in slang terms: “Ice hockey” for meth, “Jordan” for heroin, “soda” and “hard” for cocaine, and “gorilla” for marijuana.
Knighten, who goes by “Troub,” teamed up with fellow penitentiary inmate, 39-year-old Armando “Diablo” Luna, to mastermind the deals. The men then worked with a treasurer — 43-year-old Travis Vontress of Wichita — and others who collected payments, the release says.
“Lower ranking conspirators were responsible for maintaining stash houses, cutting, packaging and storing drugs, reselling the final products and other duties,” McAllister wrote in the news release.
At least five Wichita addresses served as stash houses: 930 N. Yale, 2548 N. Somerset, 245 N. Chautauqua, 1411 N. Holyoke, and 429 N. Green.
Federal agents in April 2019 launched an investigation into the trafficking ring that included sifting through thousands of intercepted messages those involved sent to each other.
The 59-page indictment, filed under seal last week in federal court in Wichita, lays out how those charged carried out their drug-related duties, negotiated drug prices, handled cash and conducted business while trying to avoid law enforcement scrutiny. Drugs and thousands of dollars changed hands while Knighten’s enterprise was active, the document indicates.
The litany of charges Knighten and his associates face include operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to distribute drugs, maintaining a drug-involved premises, unlawful use of a telephone in furtherance of drug trafficking, drug possession with the intent to distribute, and possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking.
“A large scale criminal drug conspiracy operating in Kansas whose shot caller is behind bars in another state talking on a cell phone makes this a unique case in my experience,” McAllister said in a prepared statement included in the news release.
“To the alleged traffickers, I think I would say: Can you hear us now?”
The arrests and charges “send a clear message: whether you are behind bars or on the street, you will be held accountable,” Timothy Langan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Kansas City, Missouri, said in a prepared written statement Wednesday.
“Today, over a 100 federal, state and local officers, working together executed dozens of arrests. The impact of these arrests will be immediate, and our community will be safer due largely in part to the tireless work and dedication of our law enforcement partners.”
None of the 24 people indicted had defense attorneys listed in court records Wednesday morning.
Four of the men were already in the custody of a prison or jail as the arrests took place Wednesday, court records show. Other defendants were captured in Wichita, according to their arrest warrants.
Knighten, a reputed 1990s Wichita street gang member, is serving a 90-year prison sentence for killing Kansas corrections officer Mark Avery, who died from head injuries he suffered during a fight in the Lansing Correctional Facility prison recreation building on May 22, 1993.
Others charged in the indictment are:
- Richard Adams, 27, of Wichita
- David Bell, 46, of Wichita, who goes by “Bizz”
- Frederick Collins, 47, of Wichita, also known as “P-Boy”
- Byron Fitchpatrick, 45, of Wichita
- Eric Goodwin, 53, of Wichita, who goes by “E”
- Dorzee Hill, 40, of Wichita
- Satoria Hill, 33, of Wichita, known under the street name as “Booty”
- Orlando Hogan, 44, of Wichita, who goes by “Solo”
- Derek Hubbard, 44, of Wichita, who uses “Bo” and “Bo Peep” on the streets
- Kevin Lewis, 56, of Wichita, also known as “YT” and Y”
- Armando Luna, 39, housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, who goes by “Diablo”
- Trey Martin, 27, of Wichita
- Mario Ponds, 39, of Wichita
- Otis Ponds, 41, of Wichita, known as “Wack” on the street
- Robert Richmond, 48, of Wichita, who goes by “Shot”
- Kimberly Schmidtberger, 38, of Wichita, also known as “Leggs”
- Shantus Smallwood, 46, of Wichita, who uses the street name “Gray”
- Travis Vontress, 43, of Wichita, known as “Bink” and “Gumbo”
- Kevin Walker, 54, of Wichita, who goes by “Funk”
- Tia Ward, 40, of Wichita
- Eddie Washington, 60, of Wichita, also known as “Godfather” and “Bucky”
- Trevor Wells, 39, of Wichita, who goes by “Punch” and “Punchy”
- Dallas Williams, 38, of Wichita
The presumptive penalties for the crimes charged range from up to four years to 40 years in prison and $250,000 to $20 million in fines.
Indictment details how ring worked
According to the indictment:
From at least April 2019 to July 2019, Knighten had a “network of subordinates” living in Wichita that were given drugs and would sell them to dealers and customers. He used cellphones he obtained while imprisoned at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, to make calls and send and receive text messages about potential drug transactions then passed orders about how and when to complete the sales onto his associates.
When Knighten got information about a possible deal, he would contact his treasurer, Vontress, and some of his “main traffickers” — including Lewis, Ward and Otis Ponds — to get together the money needed to make a buy.
Knighten told his associates “how to cut or break down, package and store various drugs” in the Wichita stash houses into smaller quantities to sell and “directed his subordinates to travel to certain locations to pick up drugs for resale.”
Knighten’s underlings talked to each other about their drug trafficking using text, phone calls and swapping notes with the WhatsApp Messenger. They discussed their illicit work using a variety of common words to avoid drawing attention.
Meth was called hockey, ice hockey, NHL, ice cream, cream and ice, for example.
Heroin went by black, dark, black world, and Jordan.
Cocaine — depending on whether it was powdered or in rock form — was referred to as soda water, white girls, soft or hard.
Words like onion, rose and zip described an ounce of drugs. “A grown man” and “midget” referred to a kilogram and half a kilogram, respectively.
When money was the topic of conversation, the traffickers referred to $1,000 as “a rack” or “a band.” They spoke of larger cash quantities like $6,500 using numbers like 65.
Typical messages might say something like “cream can get us rich,” that a person had sold “three more cream zips” or gave someone orders to “pick up 16 roses.”
The network used the homes at 930 N. Yale, 429 N. Green and 2548 N. Somerset as a meth and marijuana stash houses. The home at 245 N. Chautauqua was also a meth site.
Cocaine and heroin dealings went down at the 1411 N. Holyoke stash house.
Knighten’s criminal past
Knighten’s criminal history in Wichita stretches back to the early 1990s when he ran with the Junior Boys street gang and was a longtime focus of police anti-gang activities, according to The Eagle’s news archives. He was charged and convicted in 1992 with wounding a 16-year-old girl in a drive-by shooting targeting a member of a rival gang, the Insane Crips.
Back then, people called him “Money.”
A judge ordered then 19-year-old Knighten to serve 8 to 30 years in prison in the 1992 shooting case — giving him parole eligible after serving four years.
But before he made it to that point, Knighten was tried on new charges stemming from the May 1993 brutal, fatal attack on the Lansing Correctional Facility guard in the prison recreation room. During the assault, the guard was kicked and beaten with weight plates, pool balls and pool sticks, news stories from the time say.
A dozen inmates including Knighten were accused of participating in the violence.
A Leavenworth County jury convicted Knighten in 1994 of second-degree murder and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer in the guard’s death. Kansas Department of Corrections records show he has been housed at an out-of-state prison since December 2000.
The facility Knighten is currently housed in, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, is a maximum security prison.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 11:11 AM.
