Assistant U.S.
Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who handled the case, stated that Jones was a
distributor in a large-scale opioid manufacturing and trafficking organization
in the Southern Tier of New York and northern Pennsylvania between 2015 and May
2017. As part of the conspiracy, the leaders of the organization, Robert Ian
Thatcher and Maximillian Sams, imported bulk quantities of furanyl fentanyl,
acetyl fentanyl, and U-47700 from overseas suppliers in China. They ordered the
drugs on what is known as “the dark web,” and used different people and
addresses in New York and Pennsylvania to receive the shipments. Rivera
arranged for some of his friends and associates to receive packages of
controlled substances from overseas on behalf of Thatcher and Sams. Thatcher and Sams purchased equipment and
materials – including pill presses/mechanical tableting machines,
microcrystalline cellulose, lactose magnesium stearate, and powdered food
coloring – which they used to manufacture tens of thousands of blue pills
containing furanyl fentanyl, acetyl fentanyl and U-47700. The pills were made
to look like legitimate 15 milligram and 30 milligram Percocet pills.
At least two individuals – a 21 year old female, and a 25
year-old male – died after ingesting the blue pills containing furanyl fentanyl
and U-47700. In addition, at least one individual overdosed on more than one
occasion after using the blue pills manufactured and distributed by the
organization, but survived after being treated by first responders with Narcan.
Thatcher and Sams used residences at 604 South Lehigh Avenue
in Sayre, Pennsylvania, and 665 Sawdey Road in Catlin, NY, to manufacture and
process the pills for distribution. During the execution of a search warrant at
the Sayre location on May 16, 2017, law enforcement agents recovered, among
other things, 244 blue pills containing furanyl fentanyl, four long guns and
ammunition. In addition, during the execution of a search warrant at the Catlin
location on May 18, 2017, law enforcement agents recovered, among other things,
materials used by Thatcher and Sams to manufacture the pills for distribution.
During the conspiracy, Thatcher also possessed several firearms at the
Pennsylvania location and his residence in Elmira.
After manufacturing the pills, Thatcher and Sams would
distribute them in large quantities to other co-conspirators – including Jesus
Rivera, Anthony Prettyman, Terrance Washington, and Dwayne Banks, a/k/a Fizzle,
a/k/a Fizz – who would then distribute the pills to various street-level
customers in the Elmira area. In March 2016, Jones obtained a supply of pills
containing acetyl fentanyl from Rivera, and distributed some of those pills to
a customer in Elmira.
Sams also supplied pills to an individual in the Charlotte,
North Carolina area. As part of the conspiracy, Sams used co-conspirator
Anthony Prettyman to transport 5,330 blue pills containing furanyl fentanyl
from Elmira to North Carolina in October 2016. On October 25, 2016, in North
Carolina, deputies with the Iredell County (NC) Sheriff’s Office conducted a
traffic stop of the vehicle in which Prettyman was traveling. During a
subsequent search, the deputies recovered and seized a paint can with a false
bottom containing the 5,330 blue pills from inside Prettyman’s vehicle.
In early 2017, Thatcher arranged for a package of furanyl
fentanyl, that he ordered over the dark web, to be sent to Carlito Rios, Jr. On
March 13, 2017, Customs and Border Protection officers at the John F. Kennedy
International Airport Mail Branch in Queens, NY, examined a United States
Postal Service package addressed to co-conspirator Rios at 1015 Oak Street in
Elmira. The sender was listed as an entity in China. Upon inspection, the
package was found to contain approximately 249 grams of furanyl fentanyl. Sams
and Thatcher intended to use the seized furanyl fentanyl to manufacture and
distribute additional quantities of the blue pills. As part of the conspiracy,
Rios agreed to accept the package of furanyl fentanyl for Thatcher.
The sentencing’s mark the fourteenth and fifteenth
defendants to have been sentenced in this investigation:
Thatcher was
sentenced to serve 23 years in federal prison;
Sams was sentenced to 210 months in federal prison;
Prettyman was sentenced to 125 months in federal prison;
Banks was sentenced to 108 months in federal prison;
Rivera was sentenced to 108 months in federal prison;
Thatcher’s girlfriend, Amber Bates, who was convicted of
money laundering conspiracy, was sentenced to five years probation to include
six months of home detention;
Robert J. Elford was sentenced to 121 months in federal
prison;
Edward Barrett was sentenced to 90 months in federal prison;
Scott Fairbanks was sentenced to 90 months in federal
prison;
Dusty Pemberton was sentenced to 70 months in federal
prison;
Deven Hill was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison,
Chad Smith was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison; and
Isaiah McLaurin, who was convicted of witness tampering
after threatening an individual working with the Drug Enforcement
Administration on Facebook, was sentenced to serve 57 months in federal prison.
As U.S. Attorney Kennedy has previously stated, “That the
members of this organization sought to profit by pushing poison on addicts, is
reprehensible. In my view, however, what is even more insidious about their
behavior was their effort to press this poison into counterfeit pills, thereby
giving their customers a false sense of security that there was some quality
and dosage control associated with their manufacture.”
The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Drug
Enforcement Administration, Rochester Resident Office and Scranton PA Resident
Office, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Ray Donovan, New York
Field Division; the New York State Police, Community Narcotics Enforcement Team
Southern Tier, under the direction of Major Mary Clark and Lieutenant Kevin P.
Sucher; the Elmira Police Department, under the direction of Chief Joseph Kane;
Immigration and Custom Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, under the
direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Kevin Kelly; the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the direction of Special
Agent-in-Charge John B. Devito, New York Field Division; the Pennsylvania State
Police, under the direction of Acting Commissioner Lieutenant Colonel Robert
Evanchick; the Chemung County Sheriff’s Office, under the direction of
Christopher J. Moss; the Iredell, NC County Sheriff’s Office, under the
direction of Darren E. Campbell, and Customs and Border Protection Air and
Marine Unit, under the direction of Director Brian Manaher. Additional
assistance was provided by the Northeast Regional Laboratory.
