A Pickaway County man has been sentenced to 22½ years in prison after pleading guilty to drug-trafficking and firearm charges stemming from an undercover investigation at a west Columbus hotel. Samuel Griffith, 36, of Ashville, was indicted by a Franklin County grand jury in December 2025 on five counts involving the sale or distribution of controlled substances and one count of unlawfully transporting a firearm. He pleaded guilty to all six charges in April, according to court records. The investigation began Oct. 30, 2025, when Griffith arranged a drug deal with an undercover agent at a hotel on Renner Road, south of Hilliard. Court documents say Griffith had a handgun with an extended magazine in his pocket. Four other handguns were visible on a shelf, and the room contained suspected drugs, including about two-thirds of a kilogram of pressed white powder and two pounds of suspected methamphetamine. Griffith reportedly gave the agent 1.95 grams of suspected cocaine as a sample and offered to sell firearms. The two agreed on a price of $850 for two guns, records say. A search warrant later led to the seizure of 19 firearms, nearly $40,000 in cash and large quantities of suspected fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. Court records list Griffith’s earlier felony convictions as a 2009 Franklin County robbery and 2020 Pickaway County convictions for drug possession and having weapons while under disability.