Dealer gets 10 years in fatal overdose case

East Liberty man sold victim fentanyl

An East Liberty man who sold fentanyl that killed a customer will spend a decade in federal prison for it.

U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak imposed that term Tuesday on Larry Malloy, 26, whose drug-dealing caused the death in April 2016 of someone identified in court records only as T.C. Federal investigators usually don’t release the full names of victims in such cases.

Malloy had pleaded guilty for T.C.’s overdose and for distributing fentanyl and heroin.

“When you choose to deal fentanyl or heroin, you choose to risk killing someone else and tearing their family apart,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Haller said prior to sentencing. “This is a totally unacceptable, criminal choice. That is what happened in this case.”

Malloy sold heroin for two years leading up to 2016. By April of that year, he was also selling fentanyl in bags stamped “OMG.” One of his customers was T.C., 29, an addict. He died April 27.

Police and state attorney general’s office agents investigating who was responsible for T.C.’s death determined through cellphone data and interviews of one of Malloy’s customers that Malloy was the source.

After T.C.’s death, Mr. Haller said, Malloy still didn’t stop selling. An undercover officer bought more than seven bricks of fentanyl and heroin from him three times in May and June 2016. Some of the bags in the bricks were also stamped OMG.

“Mr. Malloy did not intend to kill T.C.,” Mr. Haller said, “but T.C.’s death was a completely foreseeable result of dealing fentanyl or heroin.”

As part of the sentence, Judge Hornak ordered Malloy to pay $7,917 in restitution to T.C.’s family for his funeral.