Two men – one from California and the other from Texas – were sentenced to federal prison after admitting to distributing thousands of fentanyl-laced pills across the country, including a Fort Collins man and two others who fatally overdosed in 2022.
Last week, 25-year-old Michael Ta of California was sentenced to 21 years and 8 months in federal prison. In a separate hearing, 37-year-old Rajiv Srinivasan of Texas was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months in federal prison, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Both men have previously pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and Srinivasan pleaded guilty to an additional charge of distributing fentanyl resulting in death. Both men admitted in their plea agreements to causing fatal overdoses in three people due to their drug distribution operation.
Between February and November 2022, the two men were involved in at least 3,800 drug deals with approximately 1,400 customers across the country, totaling more than 123,000 oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl, more than 20 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly 300 grams of powdered fentanyl and heroin, and 27 grams of cocaine, according to a news release.
Federal prosecutors said the men operated accounts on several darknet marketplaces, advertising and selling counterfeit oxycodone pills that they knew were laced with fentanyl and other illicit drugs.
Srinivasan — who prosecutors identified as the “organizer and leader of the conspiracy” in court documents — managed the online accounts and accepted orders while Ta received the medications from suppliers, stored the medications at his residence and shipped the orders that Srinivasan received, according with the plea agreement documents.
The men used encrypted communications apps to communicate with customers and accepted cryptocurrencies as payment to avoid detection by authorities, according to court documents.
In their plea agreements, both men admitted to causing the fentanyl-related overdose deaths of three victims, including a 19-year-old Fort Collins man, Noah Morgan. They also admitted to distributing pills laced with fentanyl to two other victims who later fatally overdosed, but did not admit to directly causing those deaths.
Morgan died of a fentanyl overdose in October 2022 after taking some of the 50 fentanyl-laced pills sent to him by Ta and Srinivasan, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said that in a letter to the court, the mother of the Fort Collins victim “painfully described the harrowing and deeply traumatic experience” of finding her son dead in his home after an overdose. she described him as “a talented and enterprising language student and a caring and kind member of her family.”
A 51-year-old Florida resident fatally overdosed in August 2022 and a 27-year-old Arkansas resident fatally overdosed in September 2022, both from using drugs sent to them by Ta and Srinivasan, according to court documents.
The other two — a 42-year-old man from Michigan and a 31-year-old man from California — died of fentanyl overdoses shortly after receiving the medications they ordered from Ta and Srinivasan.
“Each of the five victims leaves behind a family that was forever and fundamentally changed by the defendant’s actions,” prosecutors wrote in a memo before Ta’s sentencing. “Her conduct victimized countless others as part of an epidemic of addiction and despair plaguing our district and our country.”
Larimer County Behavioral Health Resources
This article originally appeared in the Fort Collins Coloradoan: Men who sold fentanyl in 5 fatal overdoses across the country are sentenced
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