(TOPEKA, Kan.) — A Saline County man has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison for his role in a drug trafficking organization that distributed methamphetamine in Salina.
33 year old Justin Jeremy Barke, of Assaria, was sentenced Tuesday during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Topeka.
Barke pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
In his plea, he admitted that he was a member of a drug trafficking organization targeted in April 2009 by the I-135/I-70 Drug Task Force, whose members included the Salina Police Department, the Saline County Sheriff's Office and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Investigators learned that the organization was headed by co-defendant Jason Eugene Vermillion, who arranged for a source of supply in Wichita to deliver methamphetamine to the conspirators two to three times a week from April to November 2009.
The source of supply would hire drivers to deliver the methamphetamine to Vermillion, co-defendant Brianna Jacobson and Barke. Vermillion, Jacobson and Barke would divide up the methamphetamine to sell it themselves or distribute it to other conspirators for them to sell.
