Kirk Lenell Smith ran his drug operation from a bed in the first-floor living room of his rented home, police said.

Smith, who officials said weighs more than 600 pounds, spent much of his time in that bed, which served as a makeshift command center.

A 9mm Kel-Tec pistol was within reach.

A nearby flat-screen television displayed images from the five surveillance cameras mounted on the outside of the Carthage house. The cameras showed the front porch, the back of the house, as well as up and down the narrow street that runs alongside railroad tracks.

Smith, who is 42, doesn’t move well. He has health problems. He requires a breathing tube. And Smith – who was sentenced last week to two years in prison for charges including cocaine trafficking – would have been a target for robbery, investigators said.

“He needed to know who was coming,” said Cincinnati police Sgt. Ryan Hudson.

In addition to drugs, police found a digital scale and more than $7,000 in cash in the home, according to court documents.

A neighbor told The Enquirer that Smith was always inside the house.

Columbus Roberts said paramedics had been to the home several times in recent years. More than one emergency vehicle would show up, he said.

“It would take so many people to pick him up and move him,” said Roberts, 66, adding that he often mowed the lawn in front of Smith’s home, just to be a good neighbor.

Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced last week while inside an ambulance that had been backed up to the loading area at the Hamilton County Courthouse. The ambulance was designated as a courtroom to accommodate Smith.

Officials said the same ambulance transported him to a state prison facility called the Correctional Reception Center, where he is now being housed. Prisoners are typically evaluated there before being sent to another prison, where they serve their terms.

Records show a criminal past

Smith’s operation at the Carthage house included approximately half a dozen "runners" who would distribute the drugs.

According to police, he would acquire several ounces of powder cocaine at a time, which would be diluted and then cooked into crack.

Among the items in the living room was a tissue box filled with crack.

Court records show that Smith has been selling drugs for at least two decades.

Smith’s first adult conviction was in 1999, when he was 22, for cocaine trafficking. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and probation, but violated that probation several times, and in 2001 was sentenced to six months in prison.

By 2006, when he was charged with possessing marijuana, records show he was listed at 5-foot-11 and 350 pounds.

In 2008, Smith’s apartment in Roselawn was under police surveillance. Court documents say he was selling crack cocaine out of the apartment. Among the items found inside was $68,000 in cash, two guns and “a large amount of powder and crack cocaine that was prepared for distribution,” the documents say.

He was sentenced in January 2009 to three years in prison.

Court records show no criminal charges for Smith until the most recent case, after police in April 2018 executed a search warrant at the Carthage house.