Lashawn Lawrence, the Greenport man convicted last month of conspiracy for his role in the September 2018 overdose death of a Riverhead man, was sentenced yesterday to two to four years in state prison.
Suffolk County Criminal Court Judge Anthony Senft, who found Lawrence guilty after a bench trial Sept. 12, imposed the sentence yesterday. It is the statutory maximum for conviction of conspiracy in the fourth degree, an E felony.
Lawrence, 36, was convicted of conspiring with John Brophy, 50, of Riverhead, to sell heroin cut with fentanyl to Lawrence Yaccarino, 50, who suffered a fatal overdose at a home on Sweezy Avenue on Sept. 19, 2018.
District Attorney Timothy Sini said Brophy and Lawrence were aware of the lethal mix of the drugs they were selling, having had conversations via text messages about the potency of the heroin/fentanyl mix, which led to two overdoses before Yaccarino’s fatal overdose.
Brophy pleaded guilty to manslaughter and narcotics sale charges in Suffolk County Criminal Court on Aug. 30. He was sentenced by Senft on Oct. 3 to four to six years in prison.
A third codefendant, Bryan Hale, 52, of Flanders, pleaded guilty on Aug. 9 to one count of attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree (narcotic drug), a class C felony. Hale was accused of allowing Lawrence and Brophy to sell drugs out of his auto repair shop at 500 Lincoln Street, in Riverhead. He is free on a $200,000 bond and is due in court for sentencing on Friday.
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