Two notorious Georgia men with a history of felony convictions have once again landed behind bars, this time sentenced to over a decade each in federal prison for their separate but serious drug and firearm offenses, according to the Department of Justice. Rodrick Taylor, known on the streets as "RT," a 40-year-old from Athens, got hit with a hefty 292-month sentence on March 13 – adding up to more than 24 years of hard time – for possession and distribution of heroin and illegal possession of a firearm. Following his release, Taylor's life on the outside will be shadows by four years of supervised release, but he won't sniff parole because it's not on the table.
Sentenced alongside Taylor, Antonio Reid, a 48-year-old from Walton County with his own fair share of run-ins with the law, received a career-offender tag and will be calling a prison cell home for 212 months – that's 17 years and eight months – after pleading guilty to distributing cocaine base. Once Reid serves his time, he's been prescribed three years of supervised release, with no chance for parole either, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported.
The man known as "RT" saw his criminal enterprise unbundled following a wiretap investigation into an Athens-based armed drug trafficking organization in 2019. Aided by the FBI and local law enforcement, identified Taylor was slinging heroin. In the twists of their investigation, one arrest led to the discovery that Taylor had played a part in a violent robbery, swiping two kilos of heroin from an Athens parking lot. Searches of Taylor's resident turned up a .40 caliber pistol and drug paraphernalia. This wasn't enough to keep Taylor on the straight and narrow, as agents later caught wind, through social media bravado and a subsequent search warrant, that Taylor was back at it, peddling heroin while flaunting a shiny new Glock pistol.
The judge showed little mercy for Reid, whose own arrest followed a wild chase after a botched traffic stop led to him crashing and then hoofing it into the woods with the cops in hot pursuit. Left behind in his vehicle by Reid, an adult woman and a toddler came through the ordeal unharmed. When the police finally slapped the cuffs on Reid, they found him carrying the crack and, thanks to his history of drug peddling, slapped him with the label of a career offender. Both cases underscore the joint efforts of local, state, and federal agencies to put the kibosh on those wreaking havoc in their communities.
