At age 47, Andrew Cooper is facing up to 20 years in prison for distributing fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that is driving record-high drug overdose deaths in the United States. Cooper, a D.C. resident, admitted selling fentanyl to a man and woman who would drive in from Virginia to buy the pills, and he acknowledged that the man overdosed and died in 2021 after consuming the drug Cooper had provided.
Cooper was not charged with the man’s death, but his admission of culpability was part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors that helped him avoid a longer prison term.
At his sentencing hearing in D.C. federal court Monday, Cooper appeared to be having second thoughts about the deal. “He is uncomfortable,” his attorney Brian K. McDaniel told U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta. “He’s been thinking long and hard about how to go forward.”
Mehta agreed to reschedule the hearing for late June, adding that he would also be thinking about the kind of sentence that would be appropriate for such a case.
Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, is at the center of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, according to a Washington Post analysis of death data for 2021 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cooper’s case is one of many in the region and the country that shows how difficult the problem is.
Jail time is often meted out in the name of public safety, although the public rarely has a direct say in how long and for what purpose. In recommending that Cooper spend 20 years behind bars, the office of Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District, wrote, “A severe sentence is designed to deter others from making the same choice [Cooper] did and will hopefully mean fewer people end up like” the person who overdosed and died.
No doubt many will agree.
But in addition to the retributive intent of putting someone in prison, Graves also cites rehabilitative goals. The recommended sentence would also give Cooper “ample time to pursue further educational and vocational training and participate in other programs that will hopefully break the cycle of his reoffending.”
Returning from prison with a skill and a job would be a socioeconomic boost for both urban and rural America. But does anybody really believe it takes 20 years to learn a trade?
For Mehta, just because Cooper wasn’t charged in the overdose death doesn’t mean he can ignore it. It has to be a factor in his sentence.
Here’s what prosecutors say happened:
Around Feb. 10, 2021, a man was released from drug rehab in Prescott, Ariz. The next day, he arrived by plane in D.C. and was picked up at the airport by a female friend. During the next five days they traveled to D.C., bought drugs from Cooper and returned to a home in Virginia to use the drugs. On the sixth day, the woman went to Cooper’s place alone. When she returned, she found her male friend dead in a bathroom, a syringe containing fentanyl on the floor nearby.
The female friend cooperated with law enforcement and was not charged.
Sitting at the defendant’s tables in Mehta’s courtroom, Cooper’s worried looks belied his beefy stature. He massaged his wrists, as he had ever since the shackles had been removed, and he stared around a near-empty courtroom as if looking for a familiar face.
He was 18 when arrested the first time. There have been many more busts since.
“To be sure, the Defendant had a relatively difficult upbringing,” the U.S. attorney’s sentencing memorandum stated. “He grew up in a single-parent home with no siblings and reported feelings of neglect.”
The report credited Cooper with trying to make better choices, noting that he had completed some classes and held some jobs during earlier stints in prison. He had obtained his GED.
“Nevertheless, after spending more than ten years in prison, he returned to trafficking drugs at the age of 37. He spent still more time in prison, and then escalated his conduct to dealing fentanyl,” it said.
A federal drug task force recovered more than $100,000 from Cooper’s house and financial account. Law enforcement officials also discovered a video in which Cooper films a large pile of cash, which he picks up and shows to the camera. He is described as looking proud in the video and declares that he has “Tesla money.”
In a three-month period, in 2021, he titled a Tesla in his name and bought a $600,000 house with a $60,000 down payment.
According to law enforcement, Cooper had all of the ingredients necessary to run a neighborhood fentanyl franchise — set up in the kitchen of his home in gentrified Ivy City. No doubt he is just one of many. And the monetary incentives virtually assure that someone will take his place, if they haven’t already.
Cooper’s case offers opportunities for public indictment that go beyond the defendant.
The prison system that had him under lock and key for more than 10 years failed in its mission to rehabilitate.
We do know, from experience, that we can’t arrest our way out of this lethal epidemic.
Even Singapore, which executes drug traffickers, can’t stop the supply if there’s a demand.
That means drug prevention and treatment will be critical. But do we even know what drug prevention and treatment models actually work — and which ones are just schemes to avoid? Whatever that drug rehab in Arizona was offering, it wasn’t enough to keep Cooper’s male customer clean for 24 hours — or alive longer than five days — after his discharge.
In Graves’s view, Cooper had shown “extreme indifference to human life.” That was among his justifications for requesting a 20-year sentence.
Is that sentence too severe, too light or just about right? That’s what Judge Mehta must figure out.