NORTHAMPTON — A Haydenville man admitted Wednesday in court to assaulting a fellow inmate in jail and drug possession charges and was sentenced to three years in state prison.

Eric Kelly-Combs, 26, pleaded guilty in Hampshire Superior Court to charges of possession with intent to distribute heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and Suboxone, a prescription narcotic used in the treatment of opioid addiction. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of assault and battery.

Kelly-Combs has been held in the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction since Feb. 19, 2016. He will receive credit for the 528 days he has already served.

“He understands he’s been living a life involved with drugs,” defense attorney John Drake said in court. “He tells me he needs to be done with this.”

He was sentenced to three years in prison on the heroin charge and two years in jail on the marijuana charge to be served concurrently. On the cocaine and Suboxone charges, he was sentenced to a year in jail on each charge and on the assault and battery charge, six months in jail, also to be served concurrently.

Police were called to the Scottish Inns on West Street in Hatfield at around 1 a.m. on Jan. 4, 2016 for a report of loud yelling coming from a room at the motel. When police arrived, they knocked but no one answered. Instead, the room’s occupants, one of whom was later identified as Kelly-Combs, fled through a back window, Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Jeremy Bucci said. When police entered the room they found two scales, a 100-gram weight, seven cell phones, $586 in cash and approximately 1.87 pounds of marijuana, Bucci told the court.

“It was quite a lot of marijuana,” Bucci said.

The following day, Kelly-Combs was recorded on a call with a Hampshire County jail inmate discussing the approximate $4,300 loss from the motel incident, Bucci said.

A month later, on Feb. 19, Kelly-Combs attempted to bring drugs into the jail by swallowing five Suboxone strips and about two tenths of a gram of cocaine, Bucci said. The value of the Suboxone strips was estimated at $300 a strip, he said.

While in custody on June 20, 2017, Kelly-Combs confronted inmate Soknang Chham about his alleged involvement in the murder of Amherst resident Jose “Joselito” Rodriguez, 31. Bucci told the court Kelly-Combs had been a friend of Rodriguez, who was shot and killed on the night of Oct. 15, 2016 at Southpoint Apartments in Amherst.

Police allege Chham pulled the trigger. Kelly-Combs and Chham got into a fist fight at the jail following a moment where two doors leading to separate areas were open at the same time, Bucci told the court. The incident led to the assault and battery charge.

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