Four Oklahomans sentenced in fatal fentanyl overdose case

The deadly fentanyl overdose of a Grady County man has led to the sentencing of four people to federal prison.

During hearings over the last two weeks in Oklahoma City federal court, U.S. District Judge Jodi W. Dishman ordered the following sentences:

● Dustin Ellis, 32, to serve 20 months.

● Pamela Payne, 40, to serve eight years and three months.

● Nicholas Sweeten, 27, to serve two years and six months.

● Sierra Mandrell, 30, to serve three years.

All four of the four defendants, who are from Grady County, pleaded guilty to distributing fentanyl.

They will serve five years of supervised release upon their release from prison.

The case was in federal court because Ellis is a member of the Choctaw Nation, Payne is a member of the Chickasaw Nation and the crimes occurred within the boundaries of the Chickasaw Nation, prosecutors said in a news release.

On April 3, 2023, the overdose victim’s son found him dead and hunched over. The man was still gripping the lighter used to smoke the deadly drug.

Prosecutors said the drug ended up in the overdose victim’s hands a day earlier.

Ellis provided Payne, his girlfriend, with several blue counterfeit “M-30” pills containing fentanyl for her to sell to others.

Payne acted as Ellis’ “runner,” a term commonly used to describe someone who conducts the hand-to-hand exchange of drugs in partnership with a supplier, prosecutors said.

Payne sold six of the pills to Mandrell, who was the overdose victim’s girlfriend. Mandrell bought the pills for both of them to use.

Sweeten facilitated the transaction between Payne and Mandrell.

Of the six pills purchased, Mandrell and her boyfriend smoked two together. Mandrell left the rest with her boyfriend and asked him to save some for her.

Two pills were found left over at the scene in the boyfriend’s bedroom, with prosecutors concluding he consumed two with Mandrell and two more by himself, leading to the fatal overdose.

Back at Ellis and Payne’s home, a search warrant was executed a day after the fatal overdose. Investigators found several small, empty plastic baggies, which are commonly used to package and distribute narcotics.

Some of the baggies depicted the same blue cartoon logo as the baggie found in the overdose victim’s bedroom that contained the two fentanyl pills leftover from Payne’s sale to Mandrell.

Ellis later consented to a search of his vehicle. Officers found eight blue fentanyl “M-30” pills, fentanyl patches, testosterone and Suboxone, an opioid addiction treatment drug.

Fentanyl deaths have skyrocketed

“This case is yet another tragic reminder of the damage that one fentanyl-laced pill can cause,” U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester said in the news release.

May 7 was National Fentanyl Awareness Day.

Fentanyl overdose deaths in Oklahoma have skyrocketed in recent years, according to data from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.

From 2018 to 2023, fentanyl overdose deaths in Oklahoma rose from 39 to 619 —  nearly 1,500%.

In 2023, fentanyl overdose deaths rose to 649, or by 4.84% over the previous year. During 2023, fentanyl overdose deaths were second only to fatal methamphetamine overdoses, which hit 698.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One gram is roughly the weight of a single Sweet & Low packet and can produce 500 pills at a cost of about 10 cents , according to the state attorney general’s office. On the street, each pill sells for between $10 and $20.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Four Oklahomans sentenced in fatal fentanyl overdose case