Suffolk DA Announces 9-Year Sentence for Dealer in Fatal Overdose; Calls for 'Chelsey's Law' to Combat Opioid Crisis
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Justin Llewellyn, 35, of Wyandanch, was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty in March to Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree and Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, for selling fentanyl and crack cocaine to Yasmine DeLeon, 25, of Ronkonkoma, that lead to her fatal overdose in November 2022. Llewellyn was one of 21 defendants indicted last April following a long-term narcotics and gun trafficking investigation.
“‘Chelsey’s Law,’ which is currently pending before the New York State legislature, would allow prosecutors to charge drug dealers with manslaughter where there are reasonable grounds to know that the substance that they are selling will cause death,” said District Attorney Tierney. “Unfortunately, under current New York State law, all prosecutors can do is charge and seek penalties for the drug sale itself, with no additional charges or penalties for the death that was caused. This must change. I hope that our legislators do something to help stop the epidemic of opioid overdoses that we are seeing across New York State.”
According to court documents and the defendant’s admissions during his guilty plea allocution, on November 13, 2022, at about 9:00 p.m., Llewellyn sold fentanyl and crack cocaine to the victim and another individual at a hotel in Ronkonkoma. The next morning, DeLeon was unresponsive to attempts to wake her up. A few minutes later, Llewellyn entered the room and administered Narcan to DeLeon, which had no effect.
When law enforcement arrived at the scene, they were unable to resuscitate the victim, and she was subsequently pronounced dead. Llewellyn was arrested at the scene and found in possession of narcotics, including fentanyl.
Law enforcement executed a search warrant of Llewellyn’s vehicle and recovered drug
paraphernalia including scales typically used to weigh drugs, and an “overdose kit” containing multiple doses of unused Narcan.
At the time of his arrest on this case, Llewellyn was out of jail and awaiting sentence on a prior drug conviction from 2021.
On March 27, 2024, Llewellyn pleaded guilty to Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree and Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree before Supreme Court Justice Richard I. Horowitz. Llewellyn admitted to participating in a narcotics distribution network and to having committed 10 separate overt acts in furtherance of the drug conspiracy.
On May 15, 2024, Justice Horowitz sentenced Llewellyn to nine years in prison followed by three years of post-release supervision on the instant case, and two and a half years in prison followed by one year of post-release supervision on the prior case from 2021. Llewellyn was represented by Christopher J. Cassar, Esq.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Raymond Coscia and Kristin Barnes of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau and Jacob Kubetz of the Narcotics Bureau, and the investigation was conducted by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office’s Fentanyl Task Force, East End Drug Task Force, and Gang Task Force, the Suffolk County Police Department’s Narcotics Section and Telephone Records and Surveillance Section, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. The 2021 narcotics arrest was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Danielle Davis of the Narcotics Bureau.