CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. (WSAV) - A woman has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for selling fentanyl-laced drugs which led to the death of 42-year-old April Raices.
District Attorney Shalena Jones held a joint press conference Wednesday with the Chatham-Savannah Counter Narcotics Team (CNT) to send a message to drug dealers.
"We are coming after you. You will not traffic and distribute illegal drugs in this county," Jones said.
Jones and Michael Sarhatt, CNT director, say they are diligently working to investigate and prosecute fentanyl overdose deaths.
"We are actively bumping fentanyl investigations to the top of the list," Sarhatt said.
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These strong statements follow the Nov. 15, 2024 conviction of Tracy Agin, who sold a controlled substance to Raices, who later died of an overdose in June 2021.
It's the first conviction in Chatham County of someone who sold fentanyl-laced drugs to another and it led to their death.
CNT currently has 86 open overdose death cases from 2023. There have been 46 so far this year.
Sarahatt and Jones say overdose deaths are the hardest cases to investigate and even harder to prosecute since they have so much data and technology to process. Another obstacle — they have to follow the trail of distribution.
"We want to get the distributors and those people responsible for bringing these drugs into our community," Jones said.
They say they learned from this trial and expect more convictions in the future. Their first fight, however, is making sure the community is educated about these deadly drugs.
"I would love to say that this conviction is a victory, but it's not because it resulted in a homicide," Jones said. "If anything, it is a lesson from our perspective that even one overdose death caused by fentanyl or any other kind of drug is one too many in this county."
Jones said she believes there are more fentanyl overdose cases in the county than they are aware of — they just aren't reported.
She asks anyone with knowledge of incidents like this to call her office or CNT.
Tracy Agin will be sentenced on Dec. 6, 2024.