UFC Vet Paul Kelly Gets 13 Years for Heroin Ring Conviction

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After his last loss in the octagon in 2011 (to Donald Cerrone at UFC 126) you couldn’t have thought things would get worse for Paul Kelly. Sure, he lost his job with the biggest MMA company in the world, but that didn’t mean that he needed to turn to nefarious means to make ends meet…oh, he did?

Evidently, Kelly was sentenced to 13 years for “Class A” drug trafficking. According to MMA Mania and the Liverpool Echo, Judge Mark Brown had this to say:

“You are an individual who has traveled widely in the course of MMA and as such would have contacts abroad. It is significant that the seizures involved large amounts of import quality heroin. In my judgement, you decided to supply Class A drugs when your contract with UFC was terminated. You obviously enjoyed the high life and saw selling heroin as an easy way to make money.”

This sucks for his family and friends, but man, what a dumb decision.

An Inside Pulse "original", SMS is one of the founding members of Inside Pulse and serves as the Chief Marketing Officer on the Executive Board. Smith is a fan of mixed martial arts and runs two sections of IP as Editor in Chief, RadioExile.com and InsideFights.com. Having covered music festivals around the world as well as conducting interviews with top-class professional wrestlers and musicians, he switched gears from music coverage at Radio Exile to MMA after the first The Ultimate Fighter Finale. He resides with his wife in New York City.