Fort Mill man sentenced to prison for drug trafficking more than 4,000 fentanyl pills
A South Carolina man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to York County drug trafficking charges involving thousands of fentanyl pills laced with other drugs including heroin, according to prosecutors and court records.
Fentanyl has become the leading source of York County overdose deaths and is now the most common drug in the Charlotte region that has created a new level of danger, officials said.
Ronnie Levi Armstrong Jr., 32, of Fort Mill, pleaded guilty in York County criminal court to three counts of trafficking heroin, court records show.
Armstrong pleaded guilty Tuesday before a trial was set to start on drug charges, according to lawyers in the case and court records. Armstrong could have faced as much as 40 years in prison if convicted at trial.
Judge Bill McKinnon sentenced Armstrong to 14 years after Armstrong agreed to plead guilty in a negotiated sentence between prosecutors and Armstrong, said Austin Newman Smith, 16th Circuit assistant solicitor.
Armstrong’s lawyer, 16th Circuit Deputy Public Defender Melissa Inzerillo, confirmed the guilty pleas and sentencing agreement, but declined further comment.
Armstrong is not eligible for parole, records show.
Armstrong was arrested in 2021 by York County Multijurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit agents on multiple warrants from different drug buys where Armstrong was selling what was purported to be fentanyl, said Smith, the prosecutor.
Police seized around 4,700 pills that when tested showed a mixture that included fentanyl, heroin and other drugs, Smith said.
“These were not prescription pills, but street pills that included different drugs,” Smith said.
DEA: Fentanyl a national problem
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA says fentanyI is inexpensive, widely available, highly addictive — and potentially lethal.
In a statement last week that named Aug. 21 as Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day, the DEA said fentanyl may be the most deadly drug ever in America.
The Centers for Disease Control said an estimated 107,622 people in the United States died of drug overdoses and poisonings in 2021, with 67 percent of those deaths involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
“Fentanyl is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in a a news release statement issued Aug. 19 about the fentanyl problem nationwide.
Drug traffickers are increasingly mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs—in powder and pill form—to drive addiction and create repeat customers, the DEA said in the statement.
Fentanyl a local, regional problem
York County officials said in a public service video released last week that in 2021 there were 109 opioid deaths in York County, with 81 of those involving fentanyl.
Coroner Sabrina Gast said in her office’s report on 2020 deaths that 48 of 85 overdose deaths in 2020 were from fentanyl, statistics showed.
York County overdose deaths have increased about 500 percent in a decade, coroner statistics show.
In July, police told the Charlotte Observer fentanyl pill mixtures have created a new level of danger and are now the most common drug in Charlotte.
This story was originally published August 25, 2022 at 8:27 AM.
