A Chattanooga man agreed Wednesday in the middle of his federal trial to spend 23 years in federal prison for selling a batch of heroin that killed a Drug Court graduate.
U.S. District Judge Harry “Sandy” Mattice will decide whether to accept Darius Blakemore’s plea agreement during his sentencing hearing on Oct. 23.
Prosecutors say Blakemore, 28, sold $200 worth of heroin to Jessica Rachels and had one of his runners, Joshua Corbett, deliver it to her in a McDonald’s parking lot on Rossville Boulevard on Feb. 22, 2016. There, Rachels passed the heroin to her passenger, 24-year-old Logan Whiteaker, who had graduated that afternoon from Hamilton County Drug Court, an alternative sentencing program that gives addicts a chance to recover outside of jail.
The next morning around 9, Red Bank police found him dead in his bathroom.
Using Whiteaker’s cellphone, authorities traced the deal to Rachels and Corbett, who pleaded guilty to their involvement last fall and will be sentenced in July, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Porter said.