An Alexandria man, who has been prosecuted multiple times of the state level for drug and firearm offenses, has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for drug trafficking offenses in connection with huge amounts of fentanyl.
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced Carrington Hammond, 29, for conspiring to distribute the drug and possessing a firearm. Three co-conspirators will be sentenced February 20, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said on Tuesday.
Hammond, prosecutors said, worked with suppliers in Arizona and local redistributors to sell kilogram-level quantities of fentanyl in Virginia.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the co-conspirators mailed Hammond packages containing tens of thousands of counterfeit pills that looked like the pharmaceutical version of oxycodone but had been laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
Court documents said police identified one package that contained 50,000 fentanyl-laced pills. Hammond also trafficked fentanyl in powder form, as well as cocaine, and sold multiple firearms, including a ghost gun made with a 3D printer, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
A search of an Alexandria two-bedroom apartment on August 10, 2023, turned up “five kilograms of counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, over two kilograms of fentanyl powder, over one kilogram of cocaine, 2.5 kilograms of marijuana, and two firearms. One firearm was hidden under a couch cushion, and the other was a semi-automatic weapon kept loaded next to a safe containing a kilogram of fentanyl,” a news release said.
Multiple police agencies, including the police chiefs of Alexandria and Fairfax County, made the announcement of Hammond’s conviction on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the Manassas City Police Department arrested four people and took 66,000 doses of fentanyl off the streets.
Feature image, stock.adobe.com
For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine’s News newsletter.
