U.S Attorney's Office busy with fentanyl prosecutions, including jail snitch who testified against Mont Vernon killer
Feb. 25—Three federal fentanyl cases reached key junctures Thursday, with two New Hampshire men sentenced and a third pleading guilty to fentanyl distribution charges.
The U.S. Attorney's office and the Drug Enforcement Administration said in statements about the cases that synthetic opioids like fentanyl remain a top law enforcement priority, because of the deadliness of the drugs.
A 25-year-old Dover man was sentenced to five years in prison, after state police found him with more than a pound of a drug mixture that contained fentanyl.
State police pulled over a Lyft on Interstate 95 in North Hampton in December 2019, according to a plea agreement filed in the case. The driver told police his passenger, Preston Elliott, 25, of Dover, had hired him to drive from Lawrence, Mass. to Dover. State police searched the car, and found more than a pound of drugs on the floor in the back seat, where Elliott had been sitting. Elliott later told police he often made the trip to Lawrence to buy drugs, using some himself and selling some to a "small customer base" in New Hampshire, prosecutors said.
"Fentanyl is causing deaths in record numbers and DEA's top priority is to aggressively pursue anyone who distributes this poison," DEA Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Boyle, said in a statement about Elliott's case. "Today's sentence not only holds Mr. Elliott accountable for his crimes but serves as a warning to those traffickers who are fueling the opioid epidemic."
A Rochester man was sentenced to just under four years in prison after selling a mix of drugs that contained fentanyl to someone who was a confidential source for the DEA.
Thomas Fall, 44, of Rochester, will spend 46 months in prison after he pleaded guilty in November to participating in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.
Fall and his girlfriend were selling drugs mixed with fentanyl out of their home in Rochester when the DEA asked an informant to buy drugs from them four times in summer 2019, according to his pela agreement.
Fall was arrested in January 2020, and told police that he and his girlfriend had been buying fentanyl from Massachusetts for their own use and a few customers in their area.
"Those who are responsible for bringing this deadly drug into the Granite State need to be held accountable for their conduct," U.S. Attorney Scott Murray said in a statement about Fall's case.
A Nashua man who had less than a quarter-ounce of a drug mix containing fentanyl on him when he was arrested pleaded guilty to possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute, and will be sentenced in June.
After Chad Landry, 37, of Nashua was arrested on a parole violation warrant, his parole officer searched him and found just over eight grams of opioids on his person, prosecutors wrote in Landry's plea agreement. Landry also told police he had been selling opioids, and police found text messages in his phone about drug sales.
During a 2010 stint in jail, Landry convinced one of the men later convicted of the 2009 Mont Vernon murder of Kimberly Cates to write him notes about the crime. Landry later testified against that man during his trial.
