Defendant trafficked fentanyl pills marketed as oxycodone
NEW YORK — A Central Islip, New York, man received a 17-year prison sentence Sept. 24 for distributing fentanyl following an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York.
The defendant, 23-year-old Tyheim Smith, admitted as part of his guilty plea that his fentanyl caused the death of a 25-year-old Suffolk County man and that he used firearms in furtherance of his drug trafficking activity.
HSI New York Special Agent in Charge William S. Walker and Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the sentence.
Walker thanked the Suffolk County Police Department for their collaboration and partnership on this investigation.
In July 2021, Smith sold the victim “blues” — pills the victim believed were oxycodone — when the defendant knew the pills were fentanyl. The victim’s family found him dead in their Bay Shore residence after the victim ingested the pills. Smith continued to sell fentanyl pills after the victim’s death.
The Suffolk County Police Department executed a search of Smith’s home in October 2021 and recovered 72 fentanyl pills marked as oxycodone along with two loaded firearms, high-capacity magazines and ammunition. Smith was released pursuant to New York State bail reform after being charged by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and continued to sell fentanyl while out on bail, until his federal arrest and remand in April 2022.
Nearly 108,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Justice, making it a leading cause of injury-related death in the United States. The increase in overdose deaths has been driven in large part by fentanyl, a drug that has been described as 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. In 2023, over 74,000 people died from a drug overdose involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a figure that was around 2,000 less than the more than 76,000 synthetic opioid overdose deaths that occurred in 2022. Between 2022 and 2023, overall drug overdose deaths declined approximately 3% from around nearly 111,000 such deaths in 2022.