Dealer, 19, sentenced in man’s drug death

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A drug dealer whose product killed a man went to prison today for five years.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon imposed that term on Tristin Axton, 19, of Charleroi, who had been one of the targets of a federal law enforcement blitz against heroin dealers in Washington County.

In November he stood before the judge and admitted that he sold the heroin that killed Anthony Terrant.

Mr. Terrant’s mother found him dead in his bedroom in Charleroi on Aug. 16, 2015. He was 35.

Axton apologized to his family in the gallery for the “heartache, embarrassment and pain” he’d caused them and to the judge for his “wrongdoing.”

At his plea hearing, he had apologized directly to Mr. Terrant’s mother in the gallery, but she didn’t attend the sentencing.

Axton asked the judge to send him to a drug treatment program at a prison as close to Pittsburgh as possible.

Under the law, he could have gotten 20 years had he gone to trial, but his plea deal called for five.

“Obviously your actions in this case had very terrible consequences,” the judge told him. “I hope that you do not grace these halls again.”

Prosecutors said Axton had been a drug dealer as a juvenile. He would leave school during school hours to sell in the Mon Valley. A team of federal agents and police investigating overdoses in Washington County found his heroin, labeled “Made in Columbia” and “Black Jack,” at the scene of many ODs, including Mr. Terrant’s.

Prosecutors said Axton did not sell directly to Mr. Terrant. He sold his heroin to someone else, who then sold it to Mr. Terrant.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross Lenhardt previously said Axton’s phone records indicated he was a “significant supplier” of heroin in the Mon Valley and kept dealing even after he knew his heroin was hurting and killing people.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Bissoon ordered Axton to pay $8,120 in restitution to Mr. Terrant’s family for his funeral costs.