A Pittsburgh drug dealer who was 19 when he dealt the heroin and fentanyl mix that killed a man in Moon will spend seven years behind bars.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon imposed that term Tuesday on Davonte Dugger, 24, after he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offense.
The 84-month prison term was agreed to by both parties as part of his plea deal.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said he sold the drugs on Aug. 7, 2018, to a person who then sold them to a man identified as RJ.
Moon police responded to a call for an unresponsive man on Aug. 8 and found RJ dead with empty stamp bags next to him marked with a red Rolex stamp. An autopsy showed he had ingested heroin, fentanyl and alcohol.
A search of RJ’s phone turned up a source from whom RJ bought the drugs, who in turn identified Dugger as the supplier.
Agents then set up a controlled buy on Oct. 10, 2018, in which Dugger sold the same Rolex stamp bags.
Investigators then obtained a search warrant on Oct. 19 and pulled Dugger’s car over, recovering 184 stamp bags marked Rolex.
Among several cellphones, agents found one that the confidential source had contacted just before selling RJ the lethal drugs on Aug. 7.
Law officers recovered another 1,399 stamp bags from Dugger’s house on Haven Street along with more cellphones and a digital scale.
When investigators told Dugger about the possible penalties he faced for delivering drugs that killed RJ, he said he could “do that standing on my head.”
The case was initially prosecuted by state authorities in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court but the U.S. attorney’s office later adopted it, and a federal grand jury indicted him in the summer of 2019.
During a detention hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Gurzo summed up Dugger’s conduct, saying he showed a “callous disregard for human life in that he would continue dealing drugs even after someone has overdosed on those drugs.”
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
