WASHINGTON — A brother and sister both pleaded guilty in court to selling fake oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl a year after they were arrested for a D.C. woman's overdose death.
According to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, 22-year-old Larry Jerome Eastman and his sister 26-year-old Justice Michelle Eastman pleaded guilty on Jan. 31.
The siblings were arrested on Jan. 26, 2022, after a 20-year-old woman died from an overdose on April 6, 2021, in Southeast D.C. Evidence shows the woman who died had previously survived an overdose and was revived by paramedics using Narcan less than a year before she died.
At the time of her death, officials found white powder on a coffee table in her apartment. That powder was later determined to be Fentanyl and the woman's death was ruled an acute Fentanyl intoxication.
Investigators looked through the woman's text message with Larry Eastman showing she had asked for "jammers," a term often used for counterfeit blue Oxycodone pills that contain Fentanyl. Larry Eastman gave the victim his address and requested a Cash App payment be sent to an account registered to his sister.
When the siblings were arrested, police found more fake Oxycodone (M30) pills, which contained Fentanyl, and match the pills that the defendants were working together to sell.
According to the DEA, of the Fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills analyzed in 2022, six out of ten now contain a potentially lethal dose of Fentanyl.
Larry and Justice Eastman each face up to 20 years in prison. They will be sentenced on June 15, 2023.
Police in Prince George's County are warning of pills that look like prescription painkillers, but are actually laced with the deadly drug fentanyl.
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