Tennessee man gets 20 years in heroin-fentanyl overdose

Gavel tile / photo courtesy of Getty Images
Gavel tile / photo courtesy of Getty Images

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- A Tennessee drug dealer has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for selling heroin laced with fentanyl to a man who died of an overdose, federal prosecutors said.

Dwayne Tullous, 57, pleaded guilty in March to causing the death of Larry House by selling heroin and fentanyl to him, the U.S. attorney's office in Memphis said in a news release Friday.

Tullous was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris in Memphis.

Prosecutors said House was found dead in July 2018 in his home in the Shelby County city of Lakeland, outside of Memphis. Tullous had visited House to sell him black tar heroin and fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service found that Tullous had received packages from the Los Angeles area to a house in Cordova, a suburb of Memphis. Investigators found black tar heroin and fentanyl in Tullous' home, prosecutors said.

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