Counterfeit fentanyl-laced Percocet pill seller sentenced in Crowley teenager’s death
The man who sold counterfeit Percocet pills laced with fentanyl to a 16-year-old boy who swallowed them, overdosed and died in his bed in Crowley was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in prison.
Eric Herrera, 20, in September 2022 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth to distribution of controlled substances to a person under 21. He was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Terry Means.
Herrera admitted he knowingly distributed the pills to a person identified in a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas as L.W. Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office records make clear Luke Wright was the youth who died.
The sale was arranged via Snapchat on Feb. 1, 2020, and the cash-pill exchange occurred outside Herrera’s girlfriend’s house.
After he purchased the pills, Wright and a friend stopped at a Whataburger restaurant before returning to Wright’s house. Wright ingested two of the 10 pills he purchased. They played a video game, “Call of Duty.” In the morning, the friend found that Wright was not breathing.
Rachael Wright rushed into her son’s room. The boy’s parents began CPR, she said in a 2022 interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
“I called 911,” Wright said. “I’m just screaming, ‘My son is dead! My son is dead!’”
A forensic pathologist determined in an autopsy that the cause of Wright’s death was fentanyl toxicity.
“Herrera explained that after he got the pills from his dealer, he thought about breaking one in half and trying it with his girlfriend, but he decided not to because he did not know anything about them and was too scared to try them,” Drug Enforcement Administration group supervisor Kevin Brown wrote in the complaint, describing an interview of the suspect.
In 2021, Herrera was charged in state court with theft of a firearm and aggravated assault. He is accused of breaking into vehicles near McCart Avenue and a brandishing a weapon at people who confronted him. The cases have not been disposed.
This story was originally published June 16, 2023 at 10:20 PM.
