Tarashanna Blake, 33, met the 39-year-old victim near her Englishtown home, where the sale was made, on May 15, 2018, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Englishtown police found the buyer dead of an overdose later that day, with several folds of what at first appeared to be heroin stamped “CAMEL” nearby, Honig said.
It was actually fentanyl, she said.
Blake took a deal from the government rather than face trial, pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Newark to possession and distribution of a drug leading to an overdose death.
U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty scheduled sentencing for Dec. 3.
Honig credited special agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, detectives from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, Englishtown police and the Trenton Police Narcotics Task Force with the investigation leading to the guilty plea, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan L. O’Neill of her Health Care Fraud Unit.
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