Two Rock Hill men sentenced in 60-pound Lake Wylie fentanyl bust
Rock Hill’s Timario Gayton admitted he ran the pill press along the shores of Lake Wylie that produced hundreds of thousands of illegal fentanyl pills.
Quonzy Hope, also of Rock Hill, helped get the pills onto the streets. One time, Hope sold thousands of pills to a confidential informant working for the police but then made sure one pill that fell on the ground was picked up because of how dangerous the drug is, prosecutors said.
It all ended when dozens of cops crashed through a Lake Wylie mobile home door in October 2022. Before that day ended, agents had arrested four men inside and made the largest seizure of the synthetic opioid in York County and South Carolina history.
The haul from just outside of Charlotte in northern York County: 60-plus pounds of fentanyl. It was piled in a bathtub and even in the toilet as the crew tried to flush the evidence. Seven pill presses. Over 160,000 illegal pills. Two guns, thousands in cash.
On Monday in federal court in Columbia, in two hearings a couple hours apart, a judge sentenced both Gayton and Hope to 15 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute the drug from that secret lab run out of a mobile home that prosecutor Elizabeth Major of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said had “all the makings of a sophisticated drug operation.”
Major said anyone who bought or took those illegal pills manufactured without any controls was “playing a game of Russian Roulette” and risking their lives without knowing how much fentanyl was in the pills.
U.S. District Court Judge Sherri Lydon sentenced both men to the same amount of prison time — but less than federal guidelines call for — because she said neither was the top of the drug scheme.
Both pleaded guilty over a year ago. Each could have faced around 20 years under optional federal sentencing guidelines.
Lydon was adamant that the drug operation was a threat to public safety and both needed harsh punishments that would hold them accountable. She told Gayton, 33, the pills made in the trailer and stamped to look like properly-made pills posed “a terrible, terrible danger to the public,” in what she called “an egregious case.”
Lydon said the scheme was “ a calculated and prolonged criminal enterprise.”
“Fentanyl is deadly,” Lydon told the 36-year-old Hope on Monday afternoon in court, two hours after Gayton appeared. “The seriousness of this case cannot be overstated.”
After a news conference about the arrest and seizure in 2022, South Carolina officials including Sen. Lindsey Graham said the 60-plus pounds of fentanyl taken from the trailer was enough to kill the entire 5 million-plus population of the state.
Fentanyl is around 50 times more potent than heroin and has been a part of overdose deaths locally and across the country, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local officials. Law enforcement says fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is cheap, easy to get, highly addictive, and lethal.
Helping his brother against cartels
It is his twin brother, Timothy Markee Gayton, that Timario Gayton, 33, said in court he was trying to help when he took part in the fentanyl scheme.
More than 50 of Timario Gayton’s family and friends packed the courtroom to show support. They saw him in handcuffs and waist shackles and a jail jumpsuit.
The owner of a construction business with no prior criminal record, he claimed he joined the drug conspiracy to help his brother who had been threatened by drug cartels, according to testimony Monday and documents filed by his lawyers.
Timario Gayton then became addicted to gambling and started selling drugs, according to one of his lawyers, Jim Griffin.
Timario Gayton started to cry in court as he spoke to the judge, saying, “I’m scared, I’m nervous.”
He then apologized for his role in the drug scheme, saying he took full responsibility for his actions.
“I know the dangers of drugs — I made some terrible mistakes,” he said in court.
Major, the prosecutor, acknowledged Timario Gayton is “very smart,” yet knew what he was doing in a “major role” that lasted at least two years, until the participants were arrested in October 2022.
Gayton was crucial to the scheme because he could operate and fix the pill presses used to make the pills that were sold, testimony showed Monday. The crew used die makers to make the pills look like real prescription medication, Lydon said.
“You were the guy who kept the pill press going,” Lydon said to Gayton.
Gayton was represented by Griffin and Dick Harpootlian — the same duo who defended Alex Murdaugh in South Carolina in the state’s highest profile murder case two years ago.
“On one side you have a horrendous crime with fentanyl that is killing hundreds of thousands of people,” Harpootlian told Judge Lydon in court.
But Harpootlian said the other side is Gayton is a father and husband who owned a business yet became caught up in the drug scheme.
Harpootlian said in court to Lydon as he asked for mercy: “I’m not telling you he isn’t a drug dealer — he is.”
Hope apologizes, too
Like Timario Gayton, Hope, 36, apologized in court for his role in the drug dealing in front of many family and friends. But unlike Gayton, he has a previous criminal record that includes robbery and other convictions, testimony showed. Plus, Hope was “higher up the food chain” with his involvement in making and selling the pills, prosecutor Major said.
“He was selling these pills,” Major said.
Hope’s lawyer, Jack Swerling, said Hope’s previous convictions were when he was young, and he deserved a second chance.
Hope, who also was shackled in court, said he hoped to get out of prison one day and see his mother again.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the mistakes I’ve made,” Hope told Judge Lydon. “I just want to see my mom without an orange jumpsuit on.”
What happens next?
Thomas Anthony Perry, 32, and Javaris Latrey Johnson, 37, also of York County, also were arrested at the mobile home in 2022 and await sentencing next month after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute narcotics. They remain jailed.
Timothy Markee Gayton, Timario Gayton’s twin brother, also pleaded guilty to two separate federal cases involving the drug scheme.
Timothy Gayton pleaded guilty in November to aiding and abetting the distribution of 400 grams of fentanyl while he was jailed on the original conspiracy charge, according to prosecutors and documents. He has also pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy from the Lake Wylie drug lab and is in jail pending sentencing in both cases.
