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Quasaan Bethea, 35, of Trenton, will have to serve out just about all of his plea-bargained 188-month sentence because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
The 39-year-old Englishtown victim bought the fatal dose – in a package stabbed “CAMEL” – from Bethea and Tarashanna Blake in May 2018, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Englishtown police who responded to a report of an overdose death soon after found several folds of “CAMEL” and some empties near her body, Honig said.
An autopsy found that she died of “acute fentanyl toxicity,” the U.S. attorney said.
Undercover detectives that same day used the victim's cellphone to make another deal with Bethea and Blake, after which both were arrested.
Rather than go to trial, Bethea pleaded guilty in federal court in Trenton this past March to possession with the intent to distribute drugs.
In addition to the prison term, Chief U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson sentenced Bethea to three years of supervised release.
Blake, 33, took a guilty plea herself this past July and is awaiting sentencing.
Honig credited special agents of the 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 Bethea's plea and sentence, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan L. O’Neill of her office’s Opioids Abuse & Prevention Task Force.
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