An Ambridge drug dealer will spend 18 years in prison for his role in a drug ring dealing heroin and fentanyl that killed a user.
U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti on Wednesday imposed that term on Jeffrey Rogers, 35, as his mother wept quietly in the gallery.
Rogers was among a group of six, including two brothers and their mother, indicted last year in federal court following a wiretap investigation by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration team which last month won a Law Enforcement Agency Directors award for their work.
Sam McCracken, 29, of New Brighton, and his brother Wayne, 32, of Ambridge, were the main targets, accused of dealing narcotics throughout Beaver and Allegheny counties. Both are awaiting trial, as is their mother, Dorothy McCracken, 59, who according to agents let her sons use her house in Economy to stash their drugs.
Rogers was a distributor for the ring and the 18-year sentence was part of a plea deal he worked out with the U.S. attorney's office. He also acknowledged his role in the death of a user identified in court only as "H.P." and apologized for his crimes.
The U.S. attorney's office in recent years has targeted numerous drug dealers whose product kills or injures users in an effort to put a dent in the opioid crisis. Those convicted face decades in prison and sometimes life terms, although most strike deals and don't receive the maximum.
Rogers' lawyer, Marvin Miller, said his client had a tough background but wants to change.
"He grew up in 'the projects' in Ambridge and felt that he had nothing compared to others in this middle-class community," Mr. Miller wrote in pre-sentence filings. "The culture which influenced him has left him broken and holding on to fragmented pieces of his life."
Rogers told the judge he intends to change his ways while in prison. He said he wants to be a personal trainer and also get into real estate, and he hopes to take courses to help him do both. He said he'd also like to take culinary arts classes behind bars.
The judge recommended he do all of those things as well as learn computer skills to make himself into the better man he promised to become.
"I think your mother will be happy to hear that," she said before U.S. marshals led him away.
Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com.
First Published: July 11, 2018, 8:42 p.m.
