Drug dealer sentenced to 20 years for fentanyl that led to death

A drug dealer will spend decades in federal prison after he sold fentanyl to a man who was living in a Lake Worth rehabilitation facility, ultimately leading to his death.

Donte Ahmad McCray met with a man identified only by the initials J.L. on April 15, 2021, at a

7-Eleven gas station on Lawrence Road in Lake Worth and sold $100 worth of fentanyl to the man, court records say. The man returned to his home, injected himself and died.

McCray pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in the death of another in late July and was sentenced Wednesday to

20 years in prison, according to court records.

After his arrest, McCray admitted to law enforcement officers that he sold drugs and had sold fentanyl “on a regular basis” to J.L.

The deal between McCray and J.L. was recorded on surveillance camera at the 7-Eleven. A manager at the facility where J.L. lived reported to the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office that he hadn’t been seen that day and was not answering his door, court records say.

Deputies found J.L. “slumped over the edge of the bed, vomit on the floor underneath him, needle marks in his feet and a hypodermic needle on the bedside table,” the document says. He had died from acute fentanyl intoxication.

Prosecutors said in a news release Friday that text messages and CashApp transactions on J.L.’s phone are what led deputies to McCray. A criminal complaint said agents from the West Palm Beach District Office of the Drug

Enforcement Agency and the Sheriff ’s Office Narcotics Division set up an undercover operation to meet up with McCray.

Two undercover deputies met with McCray on July 28, 2021, at a RaceTrac gas station on Hypoluxo Road in Lantana where they exchanged $4,200 for about 58 grams of fentanyl from McCray, the complaint says. The agents and McCray drove off, but the encounter had been recorded.

A few days later, authorities tested the drugs, which yielded a positive result for fentanyl, the complaint says, and McCray was arrested soon after.

Former Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law in 2017 that allowed people to be charged with murder for selling fentanyl that led to an overdose death.

The first person in South Florida to be indicted for first-degree murder after the law passed was Calvin Warren Jr., who sold the fatal drug to Thomas Matuseski, 36, of Boynton Beach, in 2018.

Federal law enforcement agencies have recently issued warnings about a new form of fentanyl that’s aimed at children and has been discovered in at least 18 states — rainbow fentanyl.

Fentanyl, up to 50 times stronger than heroin, is causing more deaths than any other drug.

Between January and June 2021, 2,920 people

in Florida died as a result of fentanyl, according to a May 2022 report published by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission. In those six months alone, 297 people in Broward County died from fentanyl while 223 died from the drug in

Palm Beach County.