Gay sold a confidential informant fentanyl three times totaling about 14 grams, according to court documents. A recorded conversation between Gay and the informant included Gay telling the informant how to dilute the drug to make a larger profit when reselling.
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Investigators found 200 more grams of fentanyl and fentanyl/heroin mixture in a Crown Royal bag and $5,000 in cash when a search warrant was carried out in Gay’s residence.
“Gay had in his home more than 200 grams of various fentanyl mixtures – the equivalent of thousands of potential sales to drug addicts,” U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said in a press release. “After having previously served time for dealing cocaine, Gay will now will spend the next decade in prison for trafficking fentanyl. His removal makes the community safer.”
The sentence matches that sought by defense attorney Nicholas Gounaris, who wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Gay was primarily raised by his grandmother after his mother gave birth at 16 while on drugs and the father wasn’t involved.
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Gounaris described a family in which eight siblings had lived in a one-bedroom apartment with no electricity, stove or refrigerator.
Assistant U.S. attorney Brent Tabacchi wrote in a sentencing memo that Gay’s “substantial risk of recidivism” meant the defendant should serve longer in prison.
“The sheer volume of fentanyl discovered at his home suggests that Mr. Gay was not merely peripherally involved in the drug trade,” Tabacchi wrote. “Rather, this quantity of controlled substances confirms the depths of his connections to the drug underworld.”
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