Morgan County deputies helped wrap up a drug case that Lt. Harry Luke of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office had been working on for quite a while.
For years, each time Putnam County Sheriff’s Investigator Lt. Harry Luke made a drug arrest and learned the drugs were supplied by the same person — a man Luke had arrested twice before, convicted and put on probation for 20 years, and who had even been banished from Putnam County — Luke knew something had to be done.
“He went to jail both times, but they let him out just way too quick,” Luke said. “And I had been getting information for a couple of years that he was back in business, so I began watching him where he lived in Greene County.”
After much time spent investigating and watching, Luke enlisted the help of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office.
Following a high-speed chase through downtown Madison last week, that man is behind bars once again.
Rondal Nathan Sims, 56, of Greensboro, is being held without bond in Morgan County Jail, facing an assortment of charges, including trafficking methamphetamine, felony possession of marijuana, felony fleeing and eluding, and numerous traffic offenses.
Ten years in business
Sims’ first drug-related conviction was in 2015, for which he took a negotiated plea deal and was sentenced to seven years on probation.
That sentence would’ve ended in May 2022, but in February 2018, he was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
For that conviction, Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Judge William A. Prior sentenced Sims to 20 years, with the first 180 days to be served in jail and the remainder on probation.
That probation was slated to end Feb. 5, 2038. Judge Prior also banished Sims from Putnam, Baldwin, Jones, Hancock, and Wilkinson counties for the duration of the sentence.
Once again, Sims violated his probation, and in October 2021, Judge Terry N. Massey sent him back to jail for 60 days. When he got out, he returned to his original probation terms.
“It’s very important that you understand that if you don’t report (to your probation officer), you don’t do that which you’re told, you violate these terms that are made special, the Court can revoke all of your probation up to Feb. 8, 2038. Do you understand that?” Judge Massey is quoted as asking Sims in the court transcription.
Sims affirmed he understood the terms.
Latest case
From his surveillance of Sims, Luke learned Sims had been going to Atlanta to replenish his drug supplies. Luke passed along the information to Investigator Sgt. Chase Young at the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office, and the two formed a plan.
According to MCSO incident reports, Young knew Sims was on his way back from Atlanta on Oct. 2 and would be passing through Morgan County to get to his home in Greene County. Young, Deputy Patrick Carey, and Investigators Chad Lanier and Joseph Pritchett watched the roads for Sims’ 2015 gold Toyota Camry.
When Young radioed that he saw Sims get off the interstate and turn left onto Monticello Road, Carey was on Eatonton Road and saw the Camry pull out in front of him onto South Main Street. Carey turned on his patrol vehicle's lights and siren to stop the Camry while Lanier did the same, but in front of the Camry.
“The [Camry] initially reduced its speed and appeared to be yielding for the traffic stop,” Carey said in his report. “However, [it] suddenly made a sharp left turn into the opposing lane and attempted to maneuver around Investigator Lanier’s vehicle.”
Lanier moved over to block the Camry, which forced it into a driveway, over a lawn and sidewalk, before back into the roadway and around Lanier’s vehicle. Then Sims sped away up South Main Street. The deputies reported they saw Sims throwing something that appeared to be drugs out the car window as he drove, and it was captured on their patrol vehicle cameras.
“You could see him dumping a large Ziploc bag, trying to get rid of the dope,” Luke described.
“But he was going so fast, as much was blowing back into the car as was hitting the pavement.”
Cpl. Chris Goss reportedly joined the chase after seeing the Camry on State Route 12, where he clocked it at 105 mph. As the Camry crossed into Greene County, it turned onto Bill Duvall Road and stopped in the road. Sims jumped out of the car and began running.
Goss got out of his vehicle with his 9 mm handgun drawn and ordered Sims to get on the ground. Sims complained he was having trouble breathing while on his stomach, so Goss said he could get on his back, and then handcuffed him.
In his report, Goss said Luke arrived on scene and talked to Sims.
“There were loose shards of crystal methamphetamine all inside that Camry,” Luke said. “Even on the rear deck at the back window where the speakers are, it was just covered in meth.”
Sims took them to the location where he had thrown the bags of methamphetamine and marijuana out the window. Sgt. Travis Stubbs, of the Madison Police Department, recovered at least 6.6 ounces of methamphetamine and two 1-oz. bags of medical-grade marijuana, Luke said.
“We classify it as medical grade because its THC level is really high,” he explained. “And it was in a bag with California stickers on it. The stickers said ‘medical cannabis’. But unless you’re in California, it’s not legal.”
After the arrest
Luke talked to Sims again on Monday.
“He said he did good while on the RSAT program (inmate substance abuse treatment). But after he got out of prison, if state probation had held him the least bit accountable, he thought it might’ve deterred him from getting back in the business of fooling with meth,” Luke said. “He probably would’ve got back into it anyway, but they had him on probation for that many years and never checked him one time, never went to his house or did a urine test. All he had to do was send them a payment online once a month, and they never checked on him.”
Sims will face all of the previously mentioned charges in Morgan County, and some others in Fulton County, Luke said. The only charge in Putnam County will be probation violation. When asked why he went after Sims even though Sims didn’t live in Putnam, Luke said his only goal is to keep drugs off the streets.
“I did it because we keep arresting people who say they got their meth from him and he’s in Greene County,” he said. “But it’s meth that would’ve come to the streets of Putnam County and Morgan County and Greene County.”