Drug Dealer Who Sold Lethal Fentanyl Dose Get 17 Plus Years

Kashawn Lyons received over 17 years, for selling the drugs that caused the death of Matthew Azimi. Another five years were added to his sentence, for supervised release.

It’s unsure if Kashawn Lyons is related to the Bronx Narcotic ring busted on the Upper West Side in mid-October that Patch Staff reporter, Brendan Krisel covered.

Where your been? Where you been? calls the drug dealer

The victim Matthew Azimi was a special education teacher. His wife, speaking outside the courthouse said he'd confessed to her he was struggling with heroin addiction again. He had issues with addiction when he was younger. The drug dealer "stands across from the school, and says, 'Where you been? Where you been?"

Two months before Azimi died, he had overdosed and originally told his wife he'd had food poisioning. This time around he didn’t know the heroin was laced with fentanyl.

A school custodian found Azimi dead in a faculty bathroom. A syringe and a pink glassine bag with no markings was found next to Mr. Azimi’s body, according to the NYPD.

NYPD officers recovered a syringe and a pink glassine bag with no stamp or other distinctive marking next to Mr. Azimi’s body.

Lengthy prison terms when dealing deadly drugs

"The tragic death of a public educator is a reminder of the pervasiveness of the opioid epidemic and its destructive effect on our society. Today’s sentence serves as a reminder that lengthy prison terms will result from dealing deadly opioids,”U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said.

Dealing around a school

The NYPD learned through surveillance Lyons continued to sell fentanyl and heroin near the school. They made undercover buys which had the same pink glassine bags.

More New Yorkers die of drug overdoses than homicides, suicides, and motor vehicle crashes combined

Every six hours, someone dies of a drug overdose in New York City.

In New York sixty percent of the overdose deaths in 2018 involved fentanyl, the city Health Department said.and opioids are involved in more than 80% of all overdose deaths.

U.S. overdose death rates linked to synthetic opioids, likely from illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF), increased more than 45 percent from 2016 to 2017 according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).

Nationwide, Fentanyl deaths jumped 1000% over five years.

First Responders are also vulnerable

Responders are most likely to encounter illicitly manufactured fentanyl and its analogues in powder, tablet, and liquid form. The biggest worry is inhalation.