Ore. Heroin Dealers Sentenced for OD Death August 20, 2004
News Summary
A couple in Salem, Ore., who supplied heroin to a man who died from an overdose are the first people in Oregon to be sentenced under a 1986 federal law that holds dealers responsible for a drug death, the Oregonian reported Aug. 18.When David Hoover was found dead last February after injecting heroin, a friend led police to his dealers, Jennifer Lynn Hanson, 26, and Jason Lee Welty, 30. Last week, the couple pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for selling the drugs that led to Hoover's death.
Hanson and Welty could have faced 20 years in prison under the Len Bias law, which was named for the 22-year-old University of Maryland basketball player who overdosed on cocaine in June 1986 after being drafted by the Boston Celtics.
However, under a plea bargain with prosecutors, Hanson and Welty face a maximum of 12 years in prison.
"It should send a message to dealers out there that there are consequences that can increase their time in jail considerably," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Bickers, the prosecutor in the case.
Local police don't use the Len Bias law often because it is difficult to trace a drug overdose to the source of the drugs. "The investigation is more difficult because you have to make the link between the narcotic and the drug dealer, and you are dealing with people who are no longer there to tell you who they purchased the narcotics from," Bickers said.
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