A former drug kingpin is back behind bars after being accused of pulling a gun during a road rage incident in Fayette County. 

Police said Ronald Whethers tried to run a woman off the road with her two young children and her grandchild inside the vehicle in Uniontown. 

The victim said it started on Wilson Avenue when Whethers allegedly pulled alongside her car while she was driving toward Main Street and started screaming. According to Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele, Whethers swerved at her vehicle three times as she turned onto Main Street before pulling up next to her at the stop sign at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue Extension and Bailey Avenue. 

The victim claimed that Whethers then pointed a handgun at her. 

"He adamantly denies all those allegations," Whethers' attorney, Thomas Shaffer, said. 

He pushed back on the victim's account, saying a "blind person could hit a car" on the stretch of road where she claims Whethers tried to hit her vehicle. Furthermore, he said his client insists the events described in the complaint did not happen as the victim alleges. 

While he admits to some kind of altercation with the victim, he rebuffs the claim that he had a gun. 

"He says he does not possess or own a gun," Shaffer said. "And the fact that the probation office was waiting, I guess that day, and they searched his residence and they found nothing."

Whethers is no stranger to the police. In the 1990s, prosecutors said he ran one of the largest cocaine trafficking rings on the East Coast. He also pleaded no contest to the brutal killing of a Monessen man wrongly suspected of stealing drugs. 

He was released on parole in 2023 after serving more than 30 years in state and federal prisons. Because of this, Shaffer believes his client may not get a fair shake. 

"This particular prosecution will be nothing but this incident," Aubele said. "So, we won't bring up his history."

Aubele said the investigation is ongoing. 

"This is an allegation that we take very, very seriously, but I would assure the public that he is not going to be an issue while these charges are pending," he said. 

Whethers remains behind bars.