GREENEVILLE, Tenn. — An East Tennessee court has convicted a drug ring leader, and an accomplice will spend the next 13 years in prison after a federal investigation spanning the country uncovered an East Tennessee prisoner's scheme to run a drug ring behind bars.
The U.S. Department of Justice said the accomplice, 36-year-old Charles Phelps from Nashville, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 50 or more grams of methamphetamine. Judge Ronnie Greer from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Greeneville sentenced him Monday.
According to the plea agreement, Phelps was part of a prison gang led by co-defendant Charles Elsea Jr., 44. Phelps conspired with other gang members to bring large quantities of methamphetamine into Tennessee.
The DOJ said Phelps was in charge of collecting and delivering money for the organization. On February 16, 2020, law enforcement pulled over his vehicle and seized $119,000 in cash concealed inside a spare tire. The DOJ said that money was being taken out west to purchase pounds of methamphetamine.
The arrest was part of a five-year multi-state investigation that began back in spring 2017.
The DOJ said Elsea led a prison gang and coordinated a drug organization behind bars using smuggled cell phones. Elsea has been behind bars for more than two decades serving a life sentence in the Morgan County Correctional Complex for a July 1996 murder, according to TDOC.
Elsea conspired with other gang members to purchase meth across the country from California and Arizona to transport it to Tennessee. The DOJ said he and the coconspirators also used money from the drug sales to create marijuana grow houses in and out of Tennessee, saying Elsea himself started two grow operations as this case was pending by using the jail's video system to speak to accomplices about the cultivation marijuana.
A federal jury on March 11 convicted Elsea with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, marijuana and money laundering. He faces sentencing on August 8, 2022, and could face another life sentence in prison with a minimum of 10 years for the first count.
Numerous state, local and federal officers investigated the case, including the Department of Homeland Security, DEA, U.S. Postal Service, TDOC, Elizabethton officers, and officers in Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and California.