LARNED — A scheme to smuggle drugs into the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility (LCMHF) in 2020 has resulted in additional prison sentences for three men, Pawnee County Attorney Douglas W. McNett reported Friday.
Shane Michael Slater, 38, of Wichita appear in custody in the Pawnee County District Court on Thursday for sentencing on a conviction of conspiracy to traffic controlled substances in a correctional facility, a severity level 7 nonperson felony.
The charge stemmed from an internal investigation by the Kansas Department of Corrections at the LCMHF. Slater has been in custody since his arrest in Wichita on December 4, 2020, by the ATF with the assistance of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department and KDOC personnel on the Pawnee County charges.
Slater entered a plea on May 20. At the plea hearing, Pawnee County Attorney McNett advised the Court that, had the matter proceeded to trial, the State would have presented testimony that during May of 2020, Slater conspired with LCMHF inmates Joshua Doyle Matchett, 39, and Stephen Wayne Jones, 42, to mail in papers soaked in synthetic cannabinoids into the correctional facility. To avoid getting caught, the tainted documents were sent in disguised as legal mail. The documents were later cut into approximately credit card-sized portions and sold at the correctional facility.
At his sentencing, the defendant requested probation with drug treatment conditions. After hearing arguments of counsel, District Judge Bruce Gatterman sentenced Slater pursuant to the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines to the standard sentence of 21 months in the custody of the Kansas Department of Corrections. The sentence was ordered to run consecutive to a Rice County and a McPherson County felony conviction the defendant had been on parole for at the time of the new crime. He will receive jail credit toward his prison sentence.
Matchett received a 32-month prison sentence and Jones received a 12-month prison sentence. Co-defendant Kayla Ouellette, 30 of Wichita, was placed on 36 months community corrections supervision for her part in the conspiracy.
