Two Columbus men were sentenced in U.S. District Court recently to 25years and 23 years in prison for drug crimes, sex trafficking crimes and their roles in the deaths of a local man and woman. The defendants are two of nearly two dozen individuals charged in a case involving large-scale drug and human trafficking rings, the overdose death of at least one individual and the violent death of a second victim.

Dustin A. Speakman, 35, of Columbus, was sentenced to 276 months in prison. He pleaded guilty in March 2024 to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances within 1,000 of an elementary school. As part of his plea, Speakman admitted to his role in the violent death of one victim that occurred during the time he was operating a drug distribution house.

Tyler Bourdo, 31, of Columbus, was sentenced to 300 months in prison. He also pleaded guilty in March 2024 to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances within 1,000 of an elementary school, as well as distributing fentanyl and cocaine that resulted in death and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

Speakman and Bourdo are two of 23 defendants charged in a narcotics and human trafficking case that involves at least two deaths. Two of the defendants were found guilty following a jury trial last month. All 23 defendants have been convicted or pleaded guilty.

According to court documents, from 2008 until June 2022, lead defendants Patrick Saultz and Cordell Washington ran a large-scale drug trafficking organization in Columbus that included sex trafficking, labor trafficking and money laundering.

Court documents detail that the drug trafficking organization brought large quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, alprazolam and marijuana into Columbus. These drugs were sold or used to coerce individuals into sexual activity for some members of the drug ring and their profit.

Speakman joined the drug trafficking organization after being released from jail in 2022, where he was housed with Saultz. Speakman was a mid-level drug distributor for the group out of residences on South Ogden and South Warren.

As part of his guilty plea, Speakman admitted to severely beating one of his drug runners in May 2022 and then providing him with free drugs to make up for the attack. Witnesses said the male was beaten by Speakman and then given cocaine and fentanyl as compensation. Shortly after, the victim began to seize and foam at the mouth and did not respond to Narcan. The victim was driven to an alley near Grant Hospital where he was found unconscious by Columbus Fire Department personnel with severe trauma to the face and head. His cause of death was ultimately determined to be blunt force trauma caused by Speakman.

Bourdo supplied and oversaw the drug distribution at one of the stash houses on North Warren. He was providing the property’s owners approximately $100 in illegal narcotics per day for use of the residence.

According to Bourdo’s plea agreement, on Oct. 14, 2021, an individual was found deceased in an alley between Bourdo’s primary residence and a drug distribution house. The woman was found with a needle in her hand and another needle in her pocket and had been dead for approximately 18 hours.

Further investigation revealed that, on Oct. 10, 2021, the woman had overdosed on crack cocaine and fentanyl at one of the organization’s drug houses that Bourdo supplied on North Warren. Witnesses on site immediately placed the woman in a bathtub and soaked her in cold water. The witnesses provided multiple rounds of Narcan, CPR and chest compressions, eventually resuscitating her. The woman left and, over the next 48 hours, met up with Bourdo on more than one occasion to get and use more drugs.

Video surveillance of the alley shows Bourdo walking to the deceased woman’s body just moments before police personnel arrived to attempt (unsuccessfully) to obtain her phone to prevent further investigation into her death.

As part of his plea, Bourdo admitted to coercing adult drug-addicted females into performing commercial sex acts by using violence as well as providing and then withholding or threatening to withhold narcotics and lodging.

Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly A. Norris commended the investigation coordinated by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant; Jared Murphey , Acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Detroit; and Andrew Lawton, Acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Other agencies that have assisted the task force with the investigation include the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, HIDTA Task Force, IRS-Criminal Investigation, FBI, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI), Ohio National Guard Counter Drug Task Force, Pickerington Police Department, New Albany Police Department, and the Fairfield County Sheriff's Office SWAT Team.

Assistant United States Attorneys Timothy Prichard and Emily Czerniejewski are representing the United States in this case.

This investigation is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. More information about OCDETF can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

About the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio

 

Our mission is to protect and serve the citizens of the Southern District of Ohio through the ethical, vigorous and impartial enforcement of the laws of the United States, and in so doing to defend the national security, improve the safety and quality of life in our communities, protect the public funds and financial assets of the United States, maintain a courteous and professional working environment, and, with skill and integrity, seek to do justice in every matter.

 

We are the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, one of 94 United States Attorney’s Offices in the country. We are a part of the Department of Justice. Our District is comprised of 48 counties in the southern half of the state.

 

We represent the interests of the United States, both criminal and civil, in federal court. It is our responsibility to enforce federal criminal laws. We work to prevent terrorism and promote the nation’s security. We are committed to preventing crime, enforcing federal laws, and representing the rights and interests of the American people. We strive to ensure the fair and efficient administration of justice for all Americans.

 

We prosecute those individuals and organizations that violate federal criminal statutes. We work with a multitude of federal, state, and local agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Park Service, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, The Ohio Highway Patrol, and multitude of local law enforcement agencies. We prosecute a wide-variety of offenses including domestic and foreign terrorism; child pornography and exploitation; civil rights violations; bank robbery and other violent crimes; firearms offenses; drug trafficking; health care fraud; immigration violations; public corruption; tax evasion; mail, bank and wire fraud; environmental offenses; and identity theft.

 

We also represent the United States in civil litigation, affirmative and defensive. As such, we sue individuals or entities who have violated federal civil laws. We also defend the interests of the United States when it, or one of its departments, agencies, or employees is sued, and we defend federal programs and agency actions.

 

We collect monies owed to the United States from forfeiture, restitution, and fines imposed as a part of the judgment in federal cases. We also pursue collection of civil debts owed to the United States, including student, small business, housing, and farm loans. Finally, we represent the interests of federal agencies in bankruptcy court.

 

Our district covers the Southern half of the state of Ohio.

 

The Southern District of Ohio includes three staffed offices in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton. The Columbus office is the headquarters of our District and is the largest, followed by Cincinnati then Dayton.

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