Wilkinsburg felon, son acquitted in drug case face new charges

A Wilkinsburg felon and his son who in March won rare acquittals in federal court in connection with a major U.S. prison drug ring have now been indicted again on contraband charges, as have the brother of the ringleader from Moon and an associate.

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Omari Patton, 43, a convicted heroin dealer, and his son, Dashawn Burley, 23, of Monroeville.

Both were acquitted in March in a case in which prosecutors said Burley smuggled synthetic cannabinoids, or K2, to his incarcerated father at Fort Dix, N.J.

Now father and son are accused of trying to provide K2 to another federal inmate, Shamar Banks, on various dates in 2018. Patton is also accused of attempting to obtain K2.

In a second indictment involving similar conduct, the grand jury accused Ross Landfried, 40, of Moon, and a second man, David Curran, 39, formerly of Pittsburgh, of possessing and attempting to obtain K2 while in federal prison between July 2017 and January 2019. Ross Landfried is the brother of prison drug ring leader Noah Landfried, also of Moon, who is awaiting sentencing.

Ross Landfried, like Patton, had been among those charged in the prison drug case. Curran was also charged in that investigation. Their cases in that prosecution are pending.

In the Patton case, he and his son beat the odds.

The conviction rate in the federal courts is about 95% because nearly everyone pleads guilty, but Patton and Burley went to trial and won.

Attorneys for the two men said the issue was whether the jury believed they had the required knowledge and intent to form a conspiracy, as the government alleged.

Attorney Michael Attorney Michael DeMatt, who represented Burley, also argued to the jury his conspire client to didn’t possess knowingly K2 with intent to distribute because he didn’t know what he was sending to his dad was a controlled substance.

Mr. DeMatt said Wednesday he hadn’t seen the new indictment.

Attorney Paul Jubas, who represented Patton, did not respond to a request for comment. The verdict was a rare loss for federal prosecutors, who had previously convicted many others in the gang.

Patton, Burley and Curran were among 27 people indicted in 2019 on charges of dealing drugs across the region and inside U.S. prisons.

The members allegedly smuggled drug-saturated paper into the prisons for inmates to smoke or chew. Inmates paid for the paper with prison accounts, with the money transferred from those accounts to the accounts of inmate dealers.

Patton was once part of the largest drug ring ever prosecuted in Western Pennsylvania. He had been an underling to Oliver Beasley and Donald Lyles, who in the late 1990s and early 2000s ran a massive cocaine 2000s ran a massive cocaine and heroin operation across the region. Then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft came to Pittsburgh to announce that case.

Ross and Noah Landfried also have a significant criminal past as major drug dealers. The brothers were convicted in federal court in Illinois and sentenced to prison in 2010 for running a marijuana ring that shipped 5,200 pounds of pot from Mexico to Pittsburgh.