This story was originally published on mynorthwest.com.
A man tied to Aryan prison gangs has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison on drug charges.
Federal authorities said Yehoshua Kilp, 39, led a drug trafficking cell that moved hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine and fentanyl, even while he was jailed on state charge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated in a news release Friday.
“This defendant has been involved with the criminal justice system since age 14 and has caused significant harm,” Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller said. “The wiretap investigation revealed that even when he was jailed on state charges, he continued to direct drug distribution activities.”
Federal agents said Kilp continued distributing fentanyl despite knowing the drugs were causing overdoses.
Amount of controlled substances was ‘mind-boggling’
“The amount of controlled substances we are talking about are mind-boggling,” Chief U.S. District Judge David G. Estudillo said at his sentencing hearing in Tacoma. “There were discussions about particularly potent batches of fentanyl that was possibly leading to overdoses and yet you kept going.”
Federal authorities said Kilp and his co-conspirators discussed how to make the fentanyl less pure.
“They also schemed to wrap the fentanyl in more layers to protect the people they used to smuggle the fentanyl in their bodies,” the news release stated.
According to records filed in the case, Kilp bought and distributed hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine, large quantities of heroin, and hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills, federal authorities said.
“In August 2022, law enforcement seized more than 44 kilograms of methamphetamine, more than 4 kilograms of fentanyl-laced pills, cocaine, and heroin from an Airbnb where Kilp had been staying,” the news release stated. “When Kilp was arrested on state charges, he continued to direct the drug activities of co-defendant Sara Thompson. Thompson was sentenced to seven years in prison in January 2025. Thompson served as Kilp’s proxy for major narcotics deals.”
Leader of drug trafficking ring sentenced
The drug trafficking ring’s top-level leader, Jesse Bailey, was sentenced in July to 17.5 years in prison, the release said.
“Kilp was judged to be just slightly below Bailey in the drug ring, so prosecutors recommended a 15-year sentence, with five years of supervised release to follow,” the attorney’s office noted.
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