Admitted drug dealer gets 3 years in prison

Timothy J. Simpson Jr. bought heroin and fentanyl from a downstate supplier, then came back to sell it.

A Claverack man was sentenced Tuesday to just over three years in prison for trafficking heroin and fentanyl in Columbia County, federal prosecutors said.

Timothy J. Simpson Jr., 41, of Philmont, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 37 months behind bars plus three years of post-release supervision, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.

Simpson admitted that between April 2017 and March 2018, he bought heroin and fentanyl from a supplier named Saul E. Pacheco, who lived in the Bronx. according to to prosecutors. Simpson said he and Pacheco met regularly in a parking in Yonkers so Pacheco could resupply Simpson with heroin and fentanyl — typically between 40 and 60 grams at a time, according to prosecutors.

After being supplied with heroin and fentanyl, Simpson admitted he drove back to Columbia

County and sold the drugs to customers, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On March 22, 2018, Columbia County sheriff’s deputies stopped Simpson as drove on county Route 9H in Claverack on his way back from a meeting with Pacheco, according to the release.

Deputies located two bags, each containing a powdery substance, wrapped in black electrical tape, which Simpson had hidden above his car’s muffler, prosecutors said. They said one bag contained about 56 grams of heroin, and the other contained about 11.5 grams.

Pacheco was sentenced in September to five years in prison.