A woman from Roswell will spend three years in a federal prison for possessing and distributing synthetic opioids, according to a release from the U.S. District Attorney of the Northern District of Georgia.
Cathine Lavina Sellers, 39, was sentenced Thursday. Sellers was convicted of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and two synthetic opioids, furanyl-fentanyl and U-47700 earlier this year. The latter drug is also known as "pinky" and the DEA says it is seven-times more powerful than morphine.
U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak said that Sellers designed pills to make them look like oxycodone and then laced the pills with fentanyl, furanyl-fentanyl and U-47700.
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“These counterfeit pills posed a particular danger to our communities, as they are comparably 50 times more potent than prescription oxycodone and present a substantially higher risk of overdose,” Pak said in a statement.
According to the release from the U.S. District Attorney’s office, Sellers sold approximately 100 pills for $1,400 in cash from her Roswell townhouse on Weatherburne Drive to a confidential source working with the DEA on June 13, 2017.
Later that night, DEA agents searched Sellers's townhouse and found a .45 caliber Glock handgun, two magazines and approximately 100 more counterfeit pills concealed in a Rite Aid bottle. DEA agents arrested Sellers that night.
A DEA lab test revealed that the pills contained furanyl-fentanyl, U-47700 and fentanyl, none of which are in legitimate oxycodone tablets. The DEA said Sellers’ pills looked like 30 milligram Roxicodone tablets, except they were a lighter blue than usual.
Sellers plead guilty to the charges. After her prison sentence, she will serve three years of supervised release.
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