Fentanyl

A fentanyl overdose death upstate in June 2023 led to a long-term investigation by the East End Drug Task Force and the arrest of eight people during early morning raids in Riverhead and Greenport last Thursday, Suffolk D.A. Ray Tierney said.

A Riverhead narcotics trafficker was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in federal prison yesterday in connection with the sale of fentanyl-laced cocaine that caused the deaths of four men in Greenport and Shelter Island in August 2021, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced yesterday afternoon.

Riverhead Police detectives have determined that none of the recent suspected overdoses at Riverhead High School involved the deadly synthetic opioid Fentanyl, police said in a press release this afternoon.

Counterfeit prescription pills made of other illicit substances including methamphetamine and fentanyl are circulating in Suffolk County, District Attorney Tim Sini warned yesterday.

The counterfeit pills bear the markings of 30 mg oxycodone and may not be distinguishable from authentic prescription oxycodone, police said. Ingestion of fentanyl may result in overdose and death.

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.

John Brophy, 49, who with LaShawn Lawrence, 35, of Greenport, was accused of dealing heroin cut with fentanyl that caused the overdose death of a man in Riverhead last September, pleaded guilty last week to criminal sale of a narcotic drug and second-degree manslaughter.

Three men accused of dealing heroin cut with fentanyl are facing multiple narcotics charges, with two of them charged with manslaughter in the overdose death of a Riverhead man in September.