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Claymont man gets federal prison for selling fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl

Delaware Public Media

A federal judge hands down prison time to a Claymont man convicted for selling large amounts of the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl. 

Charles Crest of Claymont was sentenced Monday to more than 10 years in federal prison for possessing and intending to distribute fake oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl. 

According to court documents, the 29-year-old was arrested last year after he sold more than 1,000 of the fake, lethal pills to an undercover DEA officer.  

And law enforcement found more than 4,000 additional fake pills in Crest’s apartment along with $5,400 in cash. 

In a statement, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss called selling fentanyl “a potentially deadly practice that contributes to the pernicious effects of the opioid epidemic" and he promised to seek significant prison sentences for those who do so. 

A recent study from the DEA Philadelphia Field Division found illicit opioids make up more than 40 percent of all drug seizures in Delaware. And it found the percentage of fentanyl among those seized opioids to be increasing rapidly in recent years. 

Fentanyl also consistently makes up a large portion of Delaware’s overdose deaths. And the First State had the second highest overdose death rate in the nation in 2019 with 431 deaths. Officials say that number increased last year to 446.

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