KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — A Rockford man was convicted and sentenced for possession and intention to distribute meth back in 2018, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
William E. Echols, 36, was one of five prisoners in the Jefferson County Detention Center who conspired to smuggle a large amount of meth back into the prison.
The prisoners were working on a roadside detail outside of the detention center in October of 2018 when they found multiple kilograms of meth in a box on the roadside, according to the press release. Authorities said they didn't know where the meth came from.
Echols and the other prisoners then tried the meth to see if it was real. When they found out that it was, they hatched a plan to split up the meth and smuggle it back into the prison and distribute it to other prisoners.
Law enforcement was able to confiscate about two kilograms of the drug after a joint investigation between multiple agencies.
Before his drug-related convictions, Echols was classified as a career offender under the federal sentencing guidelines due to his extensive criminal history, which includes two robbery convictions and a number of other criminal offenses.
Echols was convicted by a jury of both a conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute meth and possession with the intent to distribute.
He was sentenced on Sept. 3 to 238 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release by the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.
