By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 30 – Chukwuemeka Okparaeke pleaded guilty on October 15, 2020 to importing and distributing fentanyl analogs, and to lying to authorities that his Bitcoin wallet had been hacked before agreeing to forfeiture.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison conducted the two hour long change of plea proceeding by CourtCall on October 15. Inner City Press covered it.
Okparaeke represented himself pro se, with a stand-by counsel. He had agreed to a plea agreement for at least 210 months, as well as the forfeiture.
Judge Davison asked Okparaeke if he had been coersed into pleading guilty. Okparaeke replied that the criminal justice system is inherently coersive, but no.
Okparaeke emphasized that he had never heard of one of the analogs his Alpha Bay product was deemed substantially similar to.
After a break-down with his stand-by counsel, he slightly modified the plea - but emphasized that the packages from Hong Kong he tried to pick up did not, in fact, contain any controlled substances.
The plea was deemed sufficient.
And now on July 30, 2021, CHUKWUEMEKA OKPARAEKE, a/k/a “Emeka,” was sentenced to 180 months in prison for importing and trafficking fentanyl analogues and other synthetic opioids through the dark web. OKPARAEKE previously pled guilty to distributing U-47700, a controlled substance analogue of AH-7921; importing 100 grams and more of acryl fentanyl, a controlled substance analogue of fentanyl, from Hong Kong; and making false statements to the Government regarding the proceeds of his offenses. Through his guilty plea, OKPARAEKE admitted that in November 2016, he sold U-47700 to an 18-year-old individual, who died from an overdose after using the drug. OKPARAEKE further admitted that his narcotics offenses involved over 9 kilograms of acryl fentanyl, nearly 6 kilograms of U-47700, over a kilogram of furanyl fentanyl, as well as 12 grams of 4-ANPP. OKPARAEKE was sentenced in White Plains federal court by U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román, who previously accepted OKPARAEKE’s guilty plea.
The case is US v. Okparaeke, 17-cr-225 (Roman / Davison)
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