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Date: 08-17-2023
Case Style:
Case Number:
Judge: Greg Kay
Court: United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri (Jackson County)
Plaintiff's Attorney: United States Attorney’s Office in Kansas City
Defendant's Attorney:
Description: Kansas City, Missouri criminal defense lawyer represented Defendant charged with conspiracy to engage in a drug-trafficking conspiracy.
Markus Michael A. Patterson, 40, was accused of engaging in a drug-trafficking conspiracy linked to two murders, and which distributed approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine in the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas.
On Oct. 24, 2022, Patterson pleaded guilty to participating in conspiracies to distribute methamphetamine and launder drug proceeds from Jan. 1, 2017, Sept. 1, 2018, to possessing a firearm in relation to a drug-trafficking crime, and to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Patterson was arrested on Aug. 30, 2018, at a hotel in Phelps County, Mo. Officers found approximately one pound of methamphetamine (what remained from two pounds of methamphetamine Patterson brought to Phelps County from Kansas City, Mo.), $8,742 in cash, and drug paraphernalia in Patterson’s hotel room and car. The cash seized by officers was the proceeds of drug sales, which Patterson was supposed to return to his source in Kansas City.
The drug-trafficking organization with which Patterson was associated was responsible for two murders. In August 2018, James Hampton was seized by members of the same drug-trafficking conspiracy that supplied Patterson with the Phelps County methamphetamine. Patterson was in St. Louis, Mo., with this group when Hampton was seized. Hampton was seized because conspirators thought he could help find the drugs and money stolen by co-conspirator David Richards. When they realized Hampton could not or would not help, he was restrained and beaten. Hampton was then transported from St. Louis to Kansas City, in the trunk of his car. Brittanie Broyles, who was with Hampton and witnessed him being beaten and restrained, was also taken to Kansas City.
On Aug. 6, 2018, Hampton’s car and body were discovered burning in Bates City, Mo. On Aug. 8, 2018, Broyles’s body was recovered near Super Flea in the Northeast area of Kansas City. She had been murdered by two gunshots to her head. Witnesses and video identified Patterson following co-defendant Gerald Ginnings, 43, of Kansas City, Mo., in a co-conspirator’s car as Ginnings drove Hampton’s car to Bates City. Ginnings pleaded guilty on Friday, Oct. 21, to the same charges as Patterson and is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 25, 2023.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Patterson has prior felony convictions for involuntary manslaughter, distributing a controlled substance, and tampering with physical evidence.
Patterson is among 32 co-defendants who have pleaded guilty in this case and its companion case.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades and Robert M. Smith. It was investigated by the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, the Sni Valley Fire Department, the Jackson, Lafayette, Buchanan, and Phelps County, Mo., Sheriff’s Departments, the FBI, the Jackson County Drug Task Force, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and the St. James, Mo., Police Department.
Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to 560 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Patterson to pay a money judgment of $15,000, which represents the proceeds he received from the drug-trafficking conspiracy. That forfeiture amount is based on the unlawful distribution of approximately 400 kilograms of methamphetamine, based on an average price of $8,000 per kilogram.
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Defendant's Experts:
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