Ex-Rice athlete charged in death
25-year-old accused of selling fatal opioid to football teammate
A former Rice University football player on Friday was charged with selling pills powerful enough to take down an elephant and deadly enough to kill Owls player Blain Padgett, who was found dead after he missed a practice on March 2.
Houston police arrested Stuart “Mooch” Mouchantaf, 25, on charges of delivery of a controlled substance causing death Thursday, more than seven months after Rice football players found the 21year-old dead in the bedroom of his Houston apartment.
Padgett believed he was buying hydrocodone from Mouchantaf during a deal the day before on the Rice campus, investiga- tors said. The two pills that the 6-foot-5, 250-pound junior from Beaumont wound up swallowing were actually laced with carfentanil, a powerful synthetic opioid designed to tranquilize elephants.
The two players crossed paths in 2015, when the suspect was a senior defensive tackle and Padgett was a freshman defensive end, according to the football roster.
Former Rice head football coach David Bailiff called the story the most tragic one he’s ever been around. He recounted Padgett as a fun-loving, hardworking teammate who could not have known what the was in the pill.
“The strength (Padgett’s) family has shown through this has just been incredible to me,” Bailiff said. “All they want is what every mom and dad would want are answers: Where did he get it? Then you find out it’s Stu. OK, where did Stu get it from? Why is Stu making those
kind of decisions? It’s just a heartbreaking tragic tale. One family has lost their son and the other family has lost their son.”
He added: “Stu has to understand there are consequences.”
In 2013, Mouchantaf was celebrated as Rice’s “stout defender,” but the former team captain was sidelined that year due to a knee injury. He also missed the 2014 season after aggravating an old injury, the Chronicle previously reported.
During Mouchantaf’s probable cause hearing Friday morning, a prosecutor said the 25-year-old allegedly confessed to selling Padgett four to five “hydros,” a common name for hydrocdone.
Mouchantaf stood before Judge Joe Licata wearing athletic shorts, red sneakers and a blue hooded jacket as a prosecutor deemed him a “flight risk” for obtaining a passport after Padgett’s death and booking a one-way trip to Lebanon, where he has family in the Middle Eastern country. He was ordered held at the Harris County Jail on a $250,000 bond.
In June, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences ruled Padgett’s death an accident due to the toxic effects of carfentanil. It wasn’t until late August when police interviewed Mouchantaf.
A teammate told investigators that he saw Padgett waiting for the alleged dealer outside the Sports Performance Center the day before he was found dead. The athlete allegedly told his peer he was trying “to buy some hydros” from Mouchantaf, according to court records. Padgett injured his shoulder last fall, the Chronicle reported.
County medical authorities found and tested three white, oval pills recovered from Padgett, all imprinted with “Watson 853,” which can be seen on hydrocodone. The pills tested positive for fatal doses of carfentanil, with two containing .93 grams of the anesthetic agent and the third containing .48 grams, according to court records.
Ahead of the criminal charges filed Friday, Padgett’s father, Mical, told ABC 13 that he believes his son “did not intentionally take this drug.”
Padgett’s parents did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Wyndi Padgett marked the seven months since her son’s death with a Facebook post Tuesday, reading “7 months since I’ve held you, since I’ve hugged you, talked to you, cooked for you, seen your big smile! Hurts so much.”
Don Clayton, Mouchantaf’s football coach at Cinco Ranch High School, said that while the former player seemed like “every other kid,” he was saddened to hear he might have provided lethal drugs.
“You’d like to think that your decisions would be better than that,” Clayton said.
If found guilty on the charge of delivery of a controlled substance causing death, Mouchantaf could spend five years to life in prison.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Paul Fortenberry argues that Padgett likely couldn’t tell his pills were not the hydrocodone he sought and that many people have made similar assumptions that they’ re buying pharmaceutical level drugs on the street. For ten berry, who heads the Major Narcotics Division, said many users mistakenly buy drugs laced with something far worse.
“They are literally playing Russian Roulette,” Fortenberry said. “These pills look like the real deal, but they in fact contain far more dangerous drugs than even cocaine or heroin and are far less expensive.”
Carfentanil is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“It’s one of the most, if not the most, potent synthetic opioid,” said Dr. Rex Marco, vice chairman of orthopedic surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital. “It doesn’t take as much of the compound to create an affect.”
The synthetic opioid was originally made to be an elephant tranquilizer, carrying lethal amounts invisible to the human eye.
“Users better beware that even a speck of this drug can kill you,” District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a news release. “And dealers, you are on notice that if your product kills people, you will be prosecuted for causing a death, not just dealing drugs.”
Rice University tested its football players for drugs including amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and opiates, said spokesman David Ruth.
The NCAA doesn’t test for stimulants and illicit drugs year-round but does in the postseason, according to the organization’s drug testing policy.
Research has shown that athletes generally have more exposure to opioids than people who don’t play sports, partly because of a heightened risk of injury, said Greg Canty, medical director of the Children’s Mercy Kansas City Sports Medicine Center.
On the other hand, they’re less likely to abuse nonprescribed opioids, and educating players about the risks of taking them is an important piece of preventing that abuse, he said.
“There’s a lot of pressure on athletes to get back out there and perform, perform even through pain,” Canty said. “It’s a great conversation to have with all athletes, about taking medication without any oversights, that it’s a slippery slope.”