Heroin dealer faces charge in death of 18-year-old
Unusual case carries possible life in prison
The lives of Cameron Weiss and Raymond Moya intersected briefly on Aug. 12, 2011, in a way that would end one life and could forever change the other.
A day later, Weiss, an 18-year-old La Cueva High School wrestler and football player who had become addicted to legally prescribed painkillers, was found dead in his Northeast Heights bedroom by his mother. Moya, a former member of the Westside Locos street gang and prison inmate, faces a federal trial later this fall for selling the heroin that led to Weiss’s death. He faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison if convicted.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the lives of Weiss and Moya crossed paths only once — in a Wendy’s restaurant parking lot on Coors NW.
And witnesses say the two didn’t actually meet face to face because an intermediary made the heroin purchase — 2 grams for $100.
Less than 24 hours later, Weiss was dead.
Heroin scourge
Unfortunately, the story of Cameron Weiss and Raymond Moya is one that has become all too common.
Once found only west of the Mississippi River, Mexican heroin has swept into the suburbs of Ohio, New Jersey and New England. Heroin overdose deaths in the United States have jumped more than fivefold, from 2,000 in 1999 to 15,500 in 2014, the last year for which statistics are available.
The purity of heroin trafficked by Mexican cartels has increased and the price has dropped to the point that it is one of the cheapest illegal drugs.
Heroin prosecutions are up across the country at the state and federal level.
But the criminal charge in Moya’s case — distribution of heroin resulting in death — is rare, according to officials. There is only one other
case like it pending in New Mexico federal courts and only a handful of cases like it have been charged around the country this year.
The purpose of the law is to hold drug dealers responsible for the damage they cause by selling drugs, but linking an individual overdose to a specific drug deal is difficult. Witnesses, if there are any, are usually other drug addicts and seldom volunteer information to law enforcement.
In Cameron Weiss’ case, there happened to be two witnesses — a high school friend and a jailhouse acquaintance.
Heroin deal
In 2012, federal prosecutors charged Joseph Dyson, 29, with supplying Cameron Weiss with the heroin that led to the 18-year-old’s overdose death.
Dyson had met Weiss at the Metropolitan Detention Center in July 2011 when they were both locked up on minor charges — Dyson for shoplifting under $250 and Weiss for violating probation on a disorderly conduct conviction.
According to court records, in exchange for a plea to a lesser heroin distribution charge, Dyson told prosecutors how they obtained the heroin.
On the afternoon of Aug. 12, 2011, Dyson met Weiss and his friend at McDonald’s restaurant at Central and Yale across the street from the University of New Mexico.
Dyson, using his cellphone, arranged to buy heroin to share with Weiss and his friend.
Later that day, Weiss’ friend drove Dyson and Weiss to a Wendy’s on Coors NW to buy heroin from Moya, who Dyson said had sold him heroin in the past.
Once they arrived, Dyson got out of the car and walked to a Cadillac parked at the Wendy’s.
There, he met with Moya, who was in the front passenger seat. An unidentified man was driving.
“I gave approximately $100 to Moya and received approximately two grams of heroin from him,” Dyson said in his plea agreement filed in federal court.
Dyson said he returned to the car he and Weiss arrived in. They heated the heroin using a lighter and a soda can. Dyson, Weiss and his friend all injected the heroin. They split up the rest of the heroin. A day later, he found out that Weiss overdosed.
Dyson, who pleaded guilty in federal court to distribution of heroin, has not yet been sentenced under the plea agreement, which is tied to his testimony against Moya.
He is currently locked up in federal custody because he has been unable to abide by the conditions of release set by the judge, which included not using any drugs.
Moya’s arrest
In November 2011, Albuquerque police detectives arrested Raymond Moya at a shopping center on San Mateo NE on felony warrants for probation violations after state convictions for distributing controlled substances.
Moya, whom gang detectives identified as a member of the Westside Locos, searched Moya and found 53 grams of “black tar” heroin and more than $5,000 in his pockets.
According to court records, Moya said he was selling heroin to raise money to hire an attorney to represent him in some pending felony cases in state court.
Moya was well known to Albuquerque Police Department gang detectives dating back to his teens, when he was a “tagger” (someone who spray paints gang signs in public areas) and then a member of the Westside Locos.
He had numerous arrests and three prior felony convictions in 2002 and 2004 for possession of controlled substances, and a 2002 aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly hitting someone with a gun.
According to court records, Moya admitted he was a heroin addict; his father, a house painter, was a recovering heroin addict; and a sister was addicted to heroin.
His attorney noted that Moya had been living around drug abuse since early childhood.
Five of his boyhood friends had either been killed or died of heroin overdoses, according to court records.
His girlfriend was in a drug rehabilitation program for heroin addiction, according to court records.
In April 2014, he agreed to plead guilty to distribution of heroin in a deal that carried a sentence of 10 years in federal prison instead of the potential maximum 30 years.
He had already pleaded guilty to pending state drug charges in three separate cases in exchange for a state prison sentence of nine years that would run concurrent with his federal sentence.
According to the plea agreement, Moya was aware that federal prosecutors were considering a separate case against him for the sale of heroin resulting in Cameron Weiss’s death.
U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez rejected the 10-year sentence over the objections of prosecutors and decided to sentence Moya to seven years in federal prison instead of 10 years.
According to the transcript of the court proceedings, Vazquez said she believed Moya’s criminal record was not as severe as it might appear on the surface and that he appeared amenable to rehabilitation.
She also noted that Moya had been in jail for almost three years on the state charges while his federal and state cases were resolved, and wouldn’t receive credit for that time in a federal prison sentence.
Moya is serving his federal and state sentences while the Cameron Weiss case is pending. If convicted of distributing heroin resulting in Weiss’ death, Moya faces a statutory mandatory minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison.
Prescription painkillers
Even before his death, Cameron Weiss had become one of the faces of the heroin epidemic that has swept the country — struggling for nearly two years with the drug addiction that began after his football and wrestling injuries.
His mother, Jennifer Weiss-Burke, founded Healing Addiction in our Community in 2010 while Cameron was in an out-of-state rehabilitation center.
Cameron Weiss represented a new type of heroin addict — a good student-athlete who entered the drug culture through an addiction to legally prescribed painkillers after surgery and eventually became a heroin addict.
Before and after her son’s death, WeissBurke called for more treatment programs for teen addicts in New Mexico, increasing prevention efforts in schools and educating parents.
Weiss-Burke said she didn’t want to comment on the Moya case. She is the executive director of Healing Addiction in our Community and Serenity Mesa, a treatment program for young adults.