Aaron Montgomery, an investigator with the West Central Ohio Crime Task Force, displays a bag containing approximately 2,000 fentanyl pills that were obtained by law enforcement during an investigation into the alleged distribution of illicit drugs by Lima resident Travon Thomas. Thomas is on trial in Allen County Common Pleas Court.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — Jurors in the trial of Travon Thomas, the Lima man charged with 10 felony counts related to his alleged sale and distribution of fentanyl, cocaine and heroin in Allen County, on Tuesday heard testimony from a longtime associate who said she was an active participant in his drug trafficking organization.
Sidney Jackson said Thomas was “like a family member” whom she called by the nickname Buddy. She told jurors that since 2021 she had been “working with Buddy running drugs.” She said her duties included delivering drugs to Thomas’ customers as well as counting fentanyl pills that were produced by pill presses.
She said the drugs involved in the transactions, including some found when investigators searched her home in April of 2021, belonged to Thomas.
Asked by Assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Thines to describe one drug transaction in particular, Jackson said she drove to Columbus on the evening of April 13, 2021, with the expressed mission of helping a man Thomas knew repair a fentanyl pill press. She said that once the press was working she was instructed by Thomas to remain and “bring back the pills” that were produced in the two or three hours she was at the residence.
Jackson testified that Thomas had agreed to pay her $10,000 for that trip. The payment was never made, however, because Jackson — whose vehicle was being monitored by a GPS device installed at the request of state and local drug task force investigators — was arrested upon her return to Lima. She currently faces charges related to the trafficking of drugs but agreed to testify for the state against Thomas. Jackson told jurors she received no “deals or promises” in exchange for her testimony.
Jackson also admitted under questioning that she initially gave false information to investigators when asked who was financing the trafficking operation.
“Then I told them the truth … that I went to Columbus for Travon.”
Aaron Montgomery, an investigator with the West Central Ohio Crime Task Force who was the state’s first witness on Monday, returned to the stand Tuesday and told jurors that an investigation into the large-scale sale and distribution of fentanyl and other narcotics has been underway in the Lima area since 2020 and is “still ongoing.”
Montgomery on Monday described for jurors the use of confidential informants in conducting three separate controlled drug purchases from Thomas in April of 2021 that were key to the investigation. In each case Thomas is alleged to have made the necessary arrangement to deliver or distribute the drugs.
Thomas is charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, a felony of the first degree, in addition to first-degree felony charges of aggravated funding of drug trafficking; three counts of trafficking in a fentanyl-related compound; two counts of trafficking in cocaine; and two counts of trafficking in heroin.
Testimony in the trial will resume Wednesday morning.
