A Kentucky man who sold counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl and caused the death of a teenager has been sentenced to 26 years and eight months in prison.
A police officer asked Akili O. Simpson to stop dealing pills just two days before he sold the fatal dose to a 17-year-old girl, court records show.
Simpson, 23, of Danville, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and one count of distribution of fentanyl causing death.
Simpson grew up in difficult circumstances, with little money and a father who was largely absent until he was 16 and then died shortly after they reconnected, his attorney, Patrick F. Nash of Lexington, said in a sentencing memorandum.
He eventually started selling drugs and also started using drugs and became addicted, Nash said.
Simpson sold a pill to a girl outside a store in Danville on November 3, 2022. According to court records, she died of an overdose in the basement of her parents’ home the same day, two months after she turned 17.
Federal authorities said the pill Simpson sold to the victim was marked to look like a pill containing oxycodone.
The dangers of fentanyl
Police and public health authorities have warned of the danger of fatal overdoses from pills that look like one type of painkiller or antidepressant but actually contain fentanyl, which is much more powerful than other opioid drugs.
Fentanyl is cheap, so drug organizations mix it with other drugs or turn it into pills to increase profits.
Fentanyl has been implicated in the majority of overdose deaths in Kentucky for years.
“This case is a stark reminder of the dangers of illegal fentanyl, its prevalence in our communities, and the devious methods of those who sell it,” U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV said in a news release. “These drugs are extremely dangerous and there is little way to know for sure what a drug dealer is selling.”
Detective asks dealer to stop selling drugs
Nash said in his sentencing memo that Simpson was “consumed by remorse” over the death. Nash demanded a 20-year prison sentence for Simpson.
However, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Bradbury, said in a sentencing memo that Simpson was a large-scale drug dealer who admitted buying 300 to 500 pills at a time to resell and knowing they contained fentanyl.
Simpson sold the 17-year-old girl the pill that killed her just weeks after getting off probation, when he was charged in court with selling marijuana and having a gun, Bradbury said.
And just two days before the sale, Keith Addison, a detective with the Danville Police Department, told Simpson that he had heard Simpson was selling drugs and asked him to stop before he was killed or killed someone.
“And I said I’m not gonna lie, I’ve sold the fake pills before,” Simpson told Addison, recounting what he would have previously told others. “I said, listen, I’m not doing that anymore, for the simple fact that 80% is what you get, and if you get a (expletive) OD, you’re done. And I left it alone. I’m not going to lie.”
Addison recorded the exchange on his body camera and Bradbury included it in the court file.
Six months later, police arrested Simpson after he sold 57 pills for $400 to a woman outside a Danville store.
Bradbury sought a sentence of between 272 and 293 months for Simpson, but U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves sentenced him to 320 months in prison.
Reeves sentenced Simpson on May 31 in federal court in Lexington.
