Annette Cary / Tri-City Herald (TNS)
A drug dealer responsible for much of the fentanyl outbreak in the Tri-Cities and Eastern Washington was sentenced Monday to 25 years in federal prison.
Kyle Rae Campbell along with his younger brother "distributed a shocking amount of deadly illicit fentanyl into the Tri-Cities area," said Eastern Washington U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref after the sentencing at the federal building in Richland.
Cameron Earl Campbell, who prosecutors said was recruited by his older brother into his illegal drug operation, was sentenced to 20 years.
The older brother's leadership role and the younger brother's extensive criminal history were both factors in the length of their prison terms, the judge indicated.
"Criminal enterprise was the family business," said Cameron Campbell's attorney Scott Johnson in an explanation of how his client was pulled into a life of crime.
Their father was the late Ron Campbell, founder and former Tri-Cities head of the Gypsy Jokers outlaw motorcycle gang, and he also served time in federal prison related to drug trafficking.
U.S. District Court Judge Judge Stanley Bastian questioned whether either brother was truly remorseful.
Brother accused of threats to kill
Kyle Campbell, 36, threatened to kill a witness in the case.
He reportedly told a witness who also was facing a possible prison time that "you know what happens to snitches in federal prison. It's easy to get got," according to a court documents.
The witness also said Kyle Campbell told him that he would cut their head off with the lid of a tin can if they testified, according to a court document.
After Cameron Campbell, 33, was arrested, he called a family member from jail and told her to remotely wipe cell phones that had been seized, destroying the evidence they contained, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Baunsgard.
The judge said that Cameron Campbell had an extensive criminal record, including a drug-related sentence that sent him to federal prison from 2015 to 2018. But that prison term did not deter him from participating in drug trafficking, Bastian said.
Both brothers are accused of dealing drugs while in jail waiting for the resolution of their cases.
Cameron Campbell was an addict and had the drugs for his own use, his attorney argued.
But federal prosecutors said in court records that both were found to be carrying drugs in their clothes in quantities larger than for their personal use.
Drugs also were found in a legal papers purportedly mailed from the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's Office to Kyle Campbell.
However, the papers with a bag of methamphetamine between the pages were not current and did not come from federal prosecutors, according to court documents.
The judge said that many times the drug dealing cases that come before his court are the result of addicts supporting their habit.
"It's clear that was not the motivating factor for you or your brother," he told Kyle Campbell.
Baunsgard said Kyle Campbell was one of the first dealers to bring fentanyl into Eastern Washington after finding an individual with a family member in Mexico to bring the drug into the United States.
Cameron Campbell wrote in a letter that a judge that no one had died due to his fentanyl trafficking. But Baunsgard said that with almost 100 pounds of drugs involved "there have to be overdose deaths."
"Trafficking in fentanyl is akin to pumping poison into the community," Baunsgard said in a court document.
Grocery bags of fentanyl
As the FBI's Tri-Cities Safe Street Task Force was investigating fentanyl trafficking deaths, several witnesses provided information about the Campbell brothers, according to a court document.
Initially, Kyle Campbell traveled to the United States and Mexico border to pick up fentanyl-laced pills and take them back to Eastern Washington.
He would sell the pills out of restaurants and bars in the Tri-Cities area and also out of his Kennewick home on Yelm Street, according to court documents.
Leann Wake, who lived with him and is a co-defendant in the case, is also accused of selling the pills. She has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced May 21.
One witness said that the older brother began traveling to California in 2019 to pick up the pills. When the younger brother finished his probation for a previous prison sentence, he took over picking up the fentanyl.
The witness estimated that the Campbell brothers operation picked up about 50,000 fentanyl pills each month from early 2019 to February 2020.
A second witness said several times they saw Kyle Cameron with a grocery bag full of an estimated 5,000 pills.
A third witness said they were obtaining 500 to 800 pills a week from Kyle Campbell and were told that after Kyle Campbell's latest arrest that when he was released from jail he would still be supplying the witness with fentanyl.
Electronic surveillance of Kyle Campbell's home showed Cameron Campbell arriving there nearly daily, staying for a short time, and then multiple vehicles would make short stops at the home.
Law enforcement arrested Cameron Campbell after a trip to San Ysidro, Calif., where he crossed into Mexico and returned to the United States multiple times.
He returned to Washington on a bus and got off in Toppenish on Feb. 12, 2020, where he appeared to be waiting at a laundry mat
FBI agents arrived and seized a "Tijuana Duty Free" bag in his backpack that held just under 10,000 fentanyl-laced pills.
His phone had multiple text messages between the brothers about his trip and the meeting locations. They included text messages that showed Cameron Campbell had left about 500 pills in a fast food restaurant bathroom in the Portland, Ore., area for another person to pick up.
In July 2020, a search of Kyle Cameron and Wake's home found about 400 fentanyl-laced pills and several firearms in a safe. They also found a small, loaded handgun in a pair of men's shorts that witnesses said he frequently carried.
Both men addressed the judge in court Monday, apologizing to the family members at the hearing. Their attorneys had requested 10 year prison sentences for each.
In addition to prison time, each also was sentenced to five years probation.
This case was investigated by the FBI in cooperation with the Kennewick, Richland and Pasco police departments and the Benton County Sheriff's Office. This case was prosecuted by Baunsgard and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Pang.
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