Press Release
FLUSHING MAN SENTENCED TO 8 YEARS FOR DEALING FENTANYL AND SELLING LOADED FIREARM
Defendant Must Forfeit $18,210
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Justin Echeverry was sentenced today to eight years in prison for selling more than 1,100 fentanyl pills and a loaded gun to an undercover officer last year. He was also sentenced to a concurrent sentence of one to three years in prison for shooting a man in the leg during a separate incident.
District Attorney Katz said: “For endangering our communities by dealing deadly narcotics and lethal weaponry, this merchant of death is going to prison. We will hold accountable anyone threatening the safety of our neighborhoods.”
Echeverry, 19, of 33rd Avenue in Flushing, pleaded guilty last month to criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree and assault in the second degree in two separate cases. Queens Supreme Court Justice Toni Cimino sentenced the defendant to eight years in prison and five years of post-release supervision. Echeverry also pleaded guilty today to criminal possession of a firearm in a separate case and was sentenced to a concurrent sentence of one to three years in prison. As part of the plea, Echeverry was ordered to forfeit $18,210.
According to the charges:
- The defendant met with an undercover detective posing as a “buyer” on January 11, 2022. The defendant sold five pills purported to be Percocet to the “buyer.”
- During a total of 11 transactions at different locations in Queens between January 11 and June 6, 2022, Echeverry sold 99 pills purported to be Percocet and 1,010 pills purported to be oxycodone to the undercover “buyer.”
- Laboratory testing of the seized narcotics revealed that each pill contained fentanyl.
- During Echeverry’s final meeting with the “buyer,” he sold the officer a loaded .22 caliber Smith and Wesson firearm.
- On March 14, 2022, he shot a 26-year-old rival in the leg during an argument on 90th Street in Jackson Heights.
- During a court-authorized search of Echeverry’s home on August 31, 2022, investigators recovered two 9 mm semi-automatic ghost guns, a .22 caliber revolver, a PA-15 assault weapon, $18,210 in cash and an array of ammunition.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Timpone, of the District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprise Bureau, prosecuted the assault case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Jonathan Sennett, Bureau Chief, and Michelle Goldstein, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief. Assistant District Attorney Sean Murphy of the District Attorney’s Major Economic Crimes Bureau prosecuted the narcotics and firearms case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Mary Lowenburg, Bureau Chief, Assistant District Attorney Catherine Kane, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Scharf, Deputy Bureau Chief, Assistant District Attorney Kieran Linehan, Supervisor, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of Investigations Gerard Brave.