A 57-year-old Jefferson City man has been sentenced to spend more than two decades in state prison for trafficking drugs in an area county.

According to a release from Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney Kristen Ellis Hilbrenner, Kevin Hilke was sentenced to 22 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on October 4, 2021. The sentencing followed his guilty plea to Trafficking in the First Degree.

Charges were brought after a Lafayette County Deputy pulled over a vehicle on I-70 on December 13, 2019. Hilke was the driver. While the deputy was conducting the traffic stop, he became suspicious that other criminal activity was going on because of the behavior of Hilke and a passenger in the vehicle. The deputy asked Hilke for consent to search the vehicle, but he refused. At that point, the Higginsville K9 officer and his canine Loki arrived on scene. Loki conducted a free-air sniff of the vehicle and alerted officers to the suspected presence of illegal controlled substances. This alert gave officers probable cause to search the vehicle, and a large amount of methamphetamine was located within the vehicle. Additional methamphetamine and paraphernalia were located on the passenger. The methamphetamine weighed approximately 864 grams. It is likely this amount of methamphetamine would have a street value of over $30,000.

Following the sentencing, Prosecutor Hilbrenner stated that the defendant is a danger and a menace to the community because of his distribution of methamphetamine and his extensive criminal history. The prosecutor pointed out that the defendant is a persistent felony offender with at least 13 prior convictions, all of which occurred in other counties, including Unlawful Transport of Firearms, Armed Career Criminal, Burglary, Stealing, Assault, Forgery, Leaving the Scene of a Motor Vehicle Accident, Driving While Intoxicated, Involuntary Manslaughter and Trafficking Drugs in the Second Degree.