Fentanyl dealer sold to man who died, officials say

A suspected CLEVELAND — Cleveland drug dealer faces federal charges and is accused of selling fentanyl to an opioid user who overdosed and died more than a year ago.

Derek Hamilton, 24, was indicted Wednesday on charges of with distribution of furanyl fentanyl that resulted in a death. Hamilton sold the powerful opioid to a Cleveland man on Aug. 2, 2016, and the man died a day later, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The indictment does not name the victim, but records from the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office show that Derek Hollingsworth, 28, was found dead by Cleveland police at the Salvation Army on Woodland Avenue on the same day. Hollingsworth died of an overdose of furanyl fentanyl and alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax, records say.

Hamilton, whose name is also listed in court filings as Dererk Hamilton, also faces drug charges for possession with intent to distribute heroin and a mix of fentanyl and cocaine. He is also charged with weapons violations.

But the distribution of drugs to someone who dies of an overdose, commonly known as a “death specification” charge, is the one that carries the most weight. If convicted, and unless federal prosecutors reach a deal, Hamilton could go to federal prison for a minimum of 20 years.

“Arresting drug dealers will not ease the pain of those left behind in the wake of a fatal overdose, but it does send a clear message that those dealers will face consequences for their illegal and deadly activities,” Timothy Plancon, the special agent in charge of the DEA’s Cleveland office, said in the news release.

Hamilton has previous weapons convictions, as well as convictions for rape and gross sexual imposition. He was sentenced in 2014 to three years in prison on the sex charges and was released in June 2016, records show.

It was not immediately clear whether Hamilton had an attorney.

While the indictment does not say where Hamilton obtained the furanyl fentanyl, authorities have said fentanyl and its analogues, which give varying degrees of the same high to opioid users, have poured into the United States from China. The fentanyl is exponentially more potent than heroin.

A Kent mother is charged with child endangering after her 3-month-old daughter died.

Cleveland.com reports police were called to Samantha Knisley’s Walter Street home shortly before 6 p.m. after she called to report that her daughter was not breathing, according to a statement from Kent police.

A complaint filed in Portage County Municipal Court says that Knisley, 22, lay on top of the child.

Paramedics took the infant to University Hospitals Portage Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Knisley is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 22, court records show.

Police say a pursuit of suspected bank robbers in suburban Cleveland ended with a crash that killed one person and injured several others.

The robbery was reported Thursday at a bank in Garfield Heights. Police say the fleeing suspects struck two police vehicles during the chase, injuring an officer and a police dog, but continued driving and crashed into another vehicle.

One of the suspects was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Two others were hospitalized with injuries that were not considered life-threatening. A person in the other vehicle was also expected to survive.

An Indiana man and an Ohio woman who were vacationing in Ireland with their spouses have died in a car crash four days into their trip.

Relatives say 62-year-old James Baker of Columbia City, Indiana, died along with Peggy Adams of Delphos, Ohio, who was his cousin’s wife. The two cousins had left Friday with their wives for a longplanned trip to Ireland.

Baker’s daughter, Diana Baker, tells WANE-TV the two couples were traveling Monday along a busy highway near the Irish city of Cork when a truck crashed into their car as they made a turn.

James Baker and Peggy Adams were killed instantly and their spouses were injured. Baker’s wife, Deborah, suffered a collapsed lung and remains hospitalized. Adams’ husband, Jack, was treated and released.

A 24-year-old man is accused of fatally shooting a man outside a convenience store on the city’s West Side.

Cleveland.com reports Shamir Lawson of Cleveland is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 4 fatal shooting of Rayfeair Leary, 27.

Leary died of multiple gunshots to his abdomen and legs, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner.

The shooting happened about 11 a.m. outside C Food Mart on Clark Avenue and West 48th Street in the city’s Stockyards neighborhood.

A witness said he heard a man yell: “Where’s my s—t at,’” and saw a man pull out a gun and fire several gunshots at Leary.

Police at the time said it appeared to be a drug-related shooting. Leary died about an hour later at MetroHealth. Workers will spend several weeks repairing cracks first discovered six years ago in the concrete walls that protect the reactor at a nuclear plant along Lake Erie.

FirstEnergy Corp. said that the work is needed because some of the cracks have grown and that it believes there is still water within the concrete at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo.

The Akron-based utility and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission both say consultants have determined that the cracks have not weakened the concrete shield building.

Crews this fall will remove and replace concrete in the areas where the cracks are located. The plant will continue to produce electricity during the work.

The first cracks were found in the plant’s concrete shell in 2011. FirstEnergy later said the problem traces back to a 1978 blizzard that likely pushed moisture into the concrete.

The first crack was about 30 feet long and about five-thousandths of an inch wide.

Ultrasonic inspections of the building’s walls found cracks that were as wide as one-eighth of an inch, said Jennifer Young, a FirstEnergy spokeswoman.

Independent experts determined the cracks had not compromised the building.

FirstEnergy waterproofed the building and stepped up inspections, but the cracks have spread slightly within the shell that protects the reactor from storms, tornadoes or a terrorist attack, the company said.

“Even though the building continues to perform its function safely as is with the cracks, this just gives us some added assurance for the future,” Young said.

Federal inspectors will have their own concrete expert at the plant during the repairs, said Viktoria Mitlyng, spokeswoman for the NRC.