12 years behind bars: Meth smuggler was part of Wichita drug ring run from prison cell
A Wichita man who admitted to a playing a role in a local drug ring operated by an Oklahoma prison inmate will spend the next decade behind bars.
Richard Adams was sentenced Friday to 144 months, or 12 years, in federal prison. He previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Five additional charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
He must also pay a $100 special assessment, though he was not fined. The judge also ordered the forfeiture of two pistols, a Kahr Arms CW 45 and a Glock 43X, ammunition and $11,300 in cash seized from the defendant.
Adams was pulled over by a Nebraska state trooper on July 23, 2019. He had been driving a BMW at 90 mph in a 75 mph zone of I-80 near North Platte, according to his plea agreement. A vehicle search turned up 7,146 grams of methamphetamine, or about 15.75 pounds. The loaded guns and money were also found in the vehicle.
He admitted that he used the guns to protect the drugs he was transporting, and he planned to use the money for future drug deals. The meth was intended for delivery and distribution in Wichita.
The most recent report by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation lists the street price of a pound of meth at $5,000. At that value, the drugs Adams was trafficking were worth about $78,750.
The plea deal had called for a sentencing range of 144 to 180 months. The public defender argued for the lower end, noting that Adams’s drug history started before he was a teenager with alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs. He was using meth, heroin and cocaine by age 16, then experimented with LSD, ecstasy, PCP and mushrooms by age 18.
Adams got clean and joined the Navy after he became a father at 19 years old. He regularly had good performance evaluations, until his sobriety was derailed two years into his military service. A back injury while snowboarding led to an opioid prescription as part of the pain treatment, and he became addicted. Illegal drug use led to a discharge, and the drug abuse continued afterward.
“Mr. Adams’s addictions were not cheap, and with no other means by which to fund his drug use, Mr. Adams intended to exchange his work as a courier for drugs,” the sentencing memorandum states.
After his 2019 arrest, Adams participated in a drug treatment program.
“The period since his arrest is Mr. Adams’s longest stint of sobriety since he was a preteen, and it has allowed him to gain some control over his anxiety, depression, PTSD and drug addiction,” his attorney wrote.
Adams was one of 24 people charged in a 55-count indictment unsealed in March 2020 connected to a Wichita drug ring. He was 27 years old at the time the charges were announced.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office have alleged that Travis Knighten ran the operation from a prison cell in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary by using contraband cell phones. The drug ring used stash houses at 930 N. Yale, 2548 N. Somerset, 245 N. Chautauqua, 1411 N. Holyoke and 429 N. Green, according to court records.
Knighten was a member of the Junior Boys street gang in the early 1990s, when he was convicted of wounding a 16-year-old girl in a drive-by shooting targeting a member of the Insane Crips, a rival gang. While in prison, he participated in the killing of a guard. His second-degree murder conviction resulted in a 90-year prison sentence.