A man arrested by the Camden Police Department (CPD) in June 2017 and by the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) in January 2018 will spend the next 20 years in a federal prison after being sentenced Wednesday to federal weapons and drug charges.
In a press release, U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Lydon said Ike Joel Mitchell, 33, of Chestnut Street, Camden, was sentenced in federal court after pleading guilty to two counts of possession with the intent to distribute crack cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana; two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm; and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Senior U.S. District Judge Terry L. Wooten sentenced Mitchell to 240 months (20 years) in federal prison, to be followed by a 10-year term of court-ordered supervision and a special assessment of $500. There is no parole in the federal system.
Evidence presented to the court established that on June 4, 2017, CPD officers found Mitchell sitting in the driver’s seat of a car parked at Walmart on West DeKalb Street. Mitchell had an outstanding arrest warrant in their jurisdiction. Mitchell was asked to step out of the car. Under the front driver’s seat, the police found a .22 caliber handgun with one round of .22 caliber ammunition in it. They also found a green book bag that contained marijuana, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and a digital scale. Officers arrested Mitchell, but he was later released on a more than $38,000 bond two days later.
Mitchell never showed up for court hearings in connection with that June 2017 arrest.
On September 20, 2017, a federal grand jury indicted Mitchell on the drug and gun charges and he remained a fugitive until January 25, 2018. On that date, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office learned that Mitchell was at Lugoff motel. As officers approached the hotel, they saw him walking with a female while talking on his cell phone. In his hand, multiple officers saw him carrying a grey plastic bag. As Mitchell saw the police, he tried to run through the breezeway of the hotel, but stopped and returned to where he was initially seen and arrested. Officers found him in possession of two keys for the hotel, a .38 caliber handgun, marijuana, and roughly $600 cash.
The officers also found the grey plastic bag that Mitchell had discarded and discovered it contained heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and two unopened bottles of a codeine mixture.
Officers then used the room keys found on Mitchell and searched the hotel room. Under one of the beds, they found a blue book bag containing methamphetamine, a .357 caliber handgun, and a mason jar containing heroin; and a black book bag containing eight additional unopened bottles of the codeine mixture.
Federal law prohibited Mitchell from possessing a firearm as a result of prior convictions for possession with the intent to distribute cocaine and distribution of cocaine base.
At the time of his January 2018 arrest, the KCSO said Mitchell had been arrested numerous times during a 12-year period for a number of narcotics-related offenses, breach of peace, public disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, failing to stop for blue lights and other instances of the unlawful carrying of a weapon.
The case was investigated by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office, and Camden Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys William K. Witherspoon and Christopher Taylor of the Columbia office prosecuted the case.
