Conspiring to distribute heroin brought a Roanoke man five years in prison Tuesday in the city's U.S. District Court.

Eric Wayne "Cakes" Otey, 27, also received a $1,000 fine and four years of supervised release after he leaves prison. U.S. District Court Judge Glen Conrad noted that Otey was addicted to heroin when he helped sell it and said he would recommend that Otey receive intensive drug rehabilitation while incarcerated. The judge also urged Otey to continue GED classes he began since being jailed last year.

"You need to use this as a springboard to another sort of lifestyle," Conrad told Otey.

Otey is the third to be sentenced among 11 defendants in a series of linked federal heroin cases. Authorities said the trafficking was connected to rising use of the drug by young people.

Otey, who pleaded guilty in February to a conspiracy charge, was part of what investigators described as a loosely organized circle of three dealers who each had their own suppliers and lower-level dealers and couriers, and who sometimes worked in cooperation. Otey worked for Clifton Dwight "Lite" Lee, one of the three primary dealers in the cases, Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis said in earlier hearings.

Otey's prison term was the mandatory minimum carried by his charge. Speaking before he was sentenced, Otey apologized.

"I was still caught up in the old state of mind, living crazy," he said. "But I'm trying to change my ways."