A legally blind rapper who was profiled in an Amazon Prime documentary was sentenced Aug. 9 in U.S. District Court in Seattle to six years in prison.
Wayne Frisby aka ‘Mac Wayne,’ 37, of Snohomish County, was arrested in December 2020, for his role in a large drug trafficking ring, according to an Aug. 9 U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Investigators had numerous recorded phone calls of Frisby making drug deals and even one discussing his efforts to help a murder suspect hide from law enforcement, according to the news release.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour imposed four years of supervised release to follow prison, noting “the massive size of the conspiracy and the huge quantity of drugs involved.”
U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said Frisby should do time in prison.
“Mr. Frisby gained notoriety through his drug dealing and self-promotion, but his conduct was serious and put countless lives at risk,” Brown said. “Drug trafficking is a gritty, dangerous business, and one that is ruining lives across our state. Those who make it their life are destined to spend time behind bars.”
According to records filed in the case, Frisby was one of 11 people indicted in December 2020 in connection with a drug trafficking ring distributing heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl pills in Pierce, King, Snohomish and Lewis counties.
The drug ring takedown was the third in a series of wiretap cases. All told, the search warrants executed in this case resulted in the seizure of approximately 93 pounds of methamphetamine, 15 pounds of heroin, 35,000 suspected fentanyl pills, 24 firearms, approximately $525,000 and a bank account valued at $100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Seizures made prior to Dec. 16, 2020, included more than 154 pounds of methamphetamine, 20 pounds of heroin and more than 7,000 suspected fentanyl pills.
Frisby was heard on the wiretap ordering up pound quantities of methamphetamine and significant amounts of heroin, according to the news release. Other recordings have him discussing firearms he carried or his efforts to assist a partner who shot another man in Marysville in a drug deal gone wrong.
Agents were able to identify Frisby as the person on the phone by comparing his voice to the Amazon Prime documentary, “Blind and Battered, the Blind Kingpin.” The documentary chronicles Frisby’s life and, in it, he freely discusses his work as a drug dealer and pimp.
On May 6, Frisby pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.
In asking for a 96-month sentence, prosecutors wrote to the court, “The risks of synthetic opioids, like methamphetamine, are well documented – according to the University of Washington Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute, state drug poisonings went up by approximately 30% in 2020, with methamphetamine and other synthetic opioids (mostly fentanyl) comprising “a growing share of drug-caused deaths.”
A Kent Police detective assigned to the DEA Drug Task Force, played a role as part of the investigation team.
“This is one of several cases regionally that materialized in part because of the evidence and information generated from the incredible work done by our detective,” Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla said in an Aug. 11 email.
Padilla said the longer term investigations that target drug trafficking organizations (Cartel level groups) done at the DEA Task Force level often have a reach regionally and sometimes nationally.
“These larger scale operations often result in local cases that branch off from them,” Padilla said.
This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The investigation was conducted by the DEA Tacoma Residence Office in partnership with Tahoma Narcotics Enforcement Team, Kent Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, SeaTac Police Department, Tacoma Police Department, Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force, the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the IRS.
