A Maryland man was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for his role in a fatal drug overdose, in what prosecutors say is an effort to hold dealers accountable for the effects of their products. Three people were indicted on charges of distributing morphine and methadone after 29-year-old Brandon Sgaggero died in a morphine and methadone overdose in March 2008.
The first of them to plead guilty, 26-year-old Luis Reyes-Torres, of Hagerstown, was sentenced Friday to nine years and seven months in prison.
He faced an enhanced sentence because his drug dealings resulted in a death, prosecutors said. It’s the third time federal prosecutors in Maryland have sought in recent years to increase a dealer’s sentence because a user died in an overdose.
“Drug dealers should be on notice that they can be held accountable if anyone dies after taking the drugs they distribute,” Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, said in a statement.
Court records say Reyes-Torres stole morphine, methadone and other medications from the nursing home where he worked in February 2008. He then gave those drugs to April Baker, who distributed the medication to Ryan Hartley in exchange for marijuana.
In March 2008, Hartley sold morphine and methadone to Sgaggero. Five days later, Sgaggero was found dead in his apartment from an overdose.
The three were charged with distributing morphine and methadone last August. Reyes-Torres and Baker pleaded guilty in February and Hartley pleaded earlier this month.
Baker and Hartley are scheduled to be sentenced this summer.
Other Maryland drug dealers have also faced harsher sentences after users died from overdoses.
In December, 23-year-old Mark Bryan, of Washington County, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after a man he sold heroin to was found dead of an overdose.
And in December 2008, Olney resident Kathleen Harris, 42, and Hagerstown resident Robert Eichelberger, 40, received prison sentences after a teenager who bought methadone pills from them died in an overdose. Harris was sentenced to 13 years in prison and Eichelberger received 20 years behind bars.
“Whether the individuals traffic in heroin, cocaine or drugs like methadone and morphine, drug trafficking can have deadly consequences,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Ava Cooper-Davis.
