A Little Elm man received a 25-year federal prison sentence Wednesday for leading a scheme that used drones to deliver methamphetamine and cellphones into a Texas state prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas.
Tyler Joseph Gatten, 33, whom the office identified as also going by "Chains," had pleaded guilty to a methamphetamine conspiracy charge, admitting a plan to possess the drug intending to make and distribute it. U.S. District Judge Sean D. Jordan imposed the 300-month term on Oct. 28, U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs announced.
What prosecutors laid out
Prosecutors told the court Gatten moved meth in kilogram quantities. According to the information presented in the case, he ran a conspiracy in which drones carried drugs and phones into a Texas Department of Criminal Justice unit in the Eastern District of Texas, where members of a white supremacist gang resold them to other inmates.
The release does not name the prison or say when the drops happened.
While Gatten was jailed awaiting trial in that case, a grand jury returned a second indictment against him in another drug conspiracy, the office said. That case centered on inmates and corrupt correctional officers getting synthetic drugs and phones into federal holding facilities, in part by mailing drug-soaked paper made to look like legal mail.
The release does not say how the second case was resolved, and it names no one else charged.
