Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Role in Drug Smuggling
A federal judge sentenced a Compton man Monday to 20 years in prison for masterminding an attempt to ship more than two pounds of crack cocaine to Ohio inside the false bottom of an ice chest.
Kenneth Lumpkin, 30, was convicted in August on one count of conspiracy and one count of abetting possession of crack with plans to distribute it.
Prosecutors said Lumpkin gave Mary Breavard $800 and a ticket to smuggle the cocaine on a bus under the watchful eye of an “escort,” Keith Chatman, 22. According to testimony, they had used the trick ice chest to smuggle the drug to Ohio by bus on other occasions.
Breavard and Chatman were arrested with the crack in January while boarding a bus at a Los Angeles Greyhound station.
Breavard pleaded guilty, and was the government’s main witness against the men.
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