Man sentenced for selling heroin linked to OD death
WEST PALM BEACH — A 28-year-old West Palm Beach-area man was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for selling heroin laced with an animal tranquilizer that prosecutors blamed for the overdose death of a 40-year-old recovering addict.
After reading letters from Roberto Mendoza’s victims, including an emotional appeal from the widow of the man who overdosed in November, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks sent the longtime drug dealer to prison for two decades and ordered him to pay $12,500 in restitution.
The widow wrote that she was with her husband when he paid Mendoza $50 for what he believed was heroin outside the Walmart on Military Trail near Boynton Beach.
She was with him when he overdosed from carfentanil, a powerful synthetic opioid used to tranquilize elephants.
“To sell someone an elephant tranquilizer, whether you know what the content is or not, is selling someone their death certificate,” the widow wrote. “Mr. Mendoza handed me Jimmy’s death certificate . ... Please your honor, please impose the highest sentence allowable to send a loud message that the world will no longer tolerate such blatant disregard for human life.”
Neither she nor her late husband was identified in court records.
After he was arrested in December, Mendoza told federal agents he had been selling heroin since about 2012, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Nucci wrote. He was arrested after he on three occasions sold heroin mixed with carfentanil and cocaine to undercover agents.
Mendoza in July pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to distribute heroin, one count of possession with intent to distribute carfentanil and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.
His attorney, Greg Morse, asked that Mendoza be given some credit for confessing to his crimes. Further, he said, Mendoza was a loving father, brother and son.
The man’s widow, along with her late husband’s sister and brother, said Mendoza had already gotten far more than he gave their loved one.
“Mr. Mendoza, you get to sit here. You get a chance to see the people you love even if it is from behind bars or glass. I do not,” the widow wrote. “You have robbed me of the chance to ever see my husband again. You have robbed Jimmy and me of a long beautiful life together.”