by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 10 – Amid fentanyl deaths, beyond Chinese precursors, US Attorney Damian Williams on Wednesday said "we are also focused on addressing the devastation fentanyl brings to everyday people here in this District."
In a sit-down session with the press, he added that in 2024 "every overdose will be treated as a crime scene."
He cited "a heartbreaking case involving the overdose death of a baby at a daycare center in the Bronx."
Inner City Press is covering that 2023 case - but also a lower profile one, in which two defendants who sold deadly fentanyl to Christopher Matrisciani was allowed to plead down to crack sale.Andrew Affredou was arrested in connection with the overdose of Christopher Matrisciani on July 2, 2019 in a hotel room in Manhattan.
On September 29, 2023, Affredou came without notice before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang to plead guilty to a lesser included offense, crack dealing. Inner City Press was there, the only media in the SDNY Mag court.
Affredou, who had faced trial, got a plea deal for 8 to 14 months, no appeal if below 27 months. He took it. The sentencing is set for February 5, 2024 at 11 am.
On January 9, 2024 Christopher Mastrisciani's mother Sandra wrote to Judge Broderick, through Williams' US Attorney's Office and their active victims' unit, about Affredou, and his co-defendant George Sewell, set to be sentenced on January 11, asking for the maximum sentence. She described her son, who began addicted while recovering from a crushed ankle, was assigned to a badly run halfway house in Bushwick and was attending Berkley College. She attached photographs.
These are heartbreaking cases, and Inner City Press will continue to report on them.
This case is US v. Affredou, et al., 22-cr-238 (Broderick)
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