TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas sentenced a former male stripper to more than 16 years in prison following his conviction on charges related to having a shank in jail and threatening to have a white supremacist gang kill a witness.

Collin Garrett Hayden, 28, was sentenced on Thursday. In March, a federal jury acquitted him of gun and drug charges but found him guilty of tampering with a witness. He also pleaded guilty at the start of his trial to possessing contraband while being held in an East Texas jail.

Police began investigating Hayden and his roommate, Timothy Franklin Harper, in 2016 for allegedly selling cocaine and methamphetamine in Shreveport, Louisiana, and at Dallas strip clubs where they performed, according to court records and a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas.

Officers recorded the pair offering to sell someone drugs, the prosecutors said, and when Hayden later learned about the charges against him he devised a plan to have his prison gang kill Harper.

Hayden has a forearm tattoo associated with white supremacist groups, according to the Texarkana Gazette.

While in jail, Hayden also threatened to kill any guards that came into his cell with a shank, after a guard reported him for trying to bribe somebody to give him a cellphone, prosecutors said.

Hayden’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

In 2018, Harper was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison on a drug conspiracy charge after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors..

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