Drug Dealer Gets 30 Years For 3 New Yorkers’ Same-Day Fentanyl Deaths

Drug Dealer Gets 30 Years For 3 New Yorkers’ Same-Day Fentanyl Deaths.
The leader of a drug delivery service in New York that was responsible for the death of three people from fentanyl poisoning on the same day was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Billy Ortega, 37, ran a service that in March 2021 delivered fentanyl-laced cocaine to three customers, US Attorney Damian Williams of the southern district of New York said in a statement.

The victims -- a lawyer, a stock trader and a social worker -- died on the same day.

"Worse yet, Ortega was fully aware that a customer had previously overdosed from the deadly fentanyl Ortega laced into his product yet continued sending the drugs to his victims," Williams said.

"Ortega's callous and remarkably evil conduct rightly deserved a significant sentence."

Ortega ran his drug operation from 2015 to 2022, employing relatives and friends. He was convicted in a trial in January this year, and a federal judge sentenced him on Wednesday, according to Williams.

"This sentence sends a message to the fentanyl traffickers causing the fentanyl epidemic in our communities that they will bear the most serious consequences," Williams' statement said.

Ortega’s defense team has indicated he plans to appeal the decision, US media reported.

The United States is facing an epidemic of deaths caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin and much easier and cheaper to produce.

It has largely replaced heroin and prescription opioids like oxycodone as a cause of overdoses. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 110,000 Americans died from overdoses last year.

China is a major producer of precursor chemicals, which are then shipped to Mexico and Central America where cartels produce fentanyl for smuggling into the United States.