Jumoke Johnson was sentenced on Monday in Federal Court to 65 months on a drug conspiracy charge.
Prosecutor Chris Poole called Johnson extremely dangerous.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Sandy Mattice.
Johnson had been in the news earlier as a teen who had been the first in his family to graduate from Brainerd High School and who found a patron willing to pay for his college education.
But Johnson dropped out of Miles College in Alabama after one semester and has been back in trouble since.
Johnson was known to be a validated gang member at the time he took part in graduation ceremonies at Brainerd High. He was given a shortened sentence in General Sessions Court in May 2012 after pleading guilty to assault with the agreement he would soon head off to college.
Johnson pleaded guilty to domestic assault involving an attack on the mother of his child and assault against a fellow jail inmate.
As part of an agreement, several cases against him in Criminal Court were also dismissed based on the General Sessions Court pleas. They included a drug case, another assault and a criminal trespass. In the drug case, a co-defendant took responsibility for the drugs. In the assault case, the alleged victim did not want to prosecute.