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Florida drug dealer gets 20 years for customer's fatal overdose

Posted at 11:02 PM, Sep 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-23 23:06:25-04

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Florida drug dealer has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his customer’s fatal overdose.

Court records show that 25-year-old Hugo Margenat-Castro was sentenced Thursday. He pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to distribute heroin and distributing fentanyl causing death.

Authorities say Margenat-Castro advertised selling heroin on social media, prompting potential customers to contact him through a website and arrange a meeting to purchase the opioid. At some point, the heroin began to be laced with fentanyl.

A Georgia man contacted Margenat-Castro in August 2015 and agreed to meet him in Orlando to purchase heroin. The customer returned to Georgia and was later found dead from an apparent drug overdose.

A medical examiner determined that the victim had taken fentanyl, a more potent opioid than heroin, and ruled the death a homicide.