JUSTICE

Drug Dealer Gets 30 Years For 3 New Yorkers’ Same-Day Fentanyl Deaths

Loved ones say the trio of young professionals would have never taken fentanyl knowingly.

Billy Ortega, the man responsible for the fentanyl-overdose deaths of three young professionals in New York City, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday. The sentencing came two-and-a-half years after the March 2021 incident where a trio of New Yorkers texted a service for cocaine but was instead hand-delivered a fatal dose of fentanyl. The trio didn’t know each other personally, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2022, but they all had Ortega as their supplier. The Journal identified those killed as Julia Ghahramani, a 26-year-old lawyer; Ross Mtangi, a 40-year-old trading executive, and Amanda Scher, a 38-year-old social worker. Screenshots showed Scher had texted the delivery-service number to request a new batch of coke from last time, complaining the last delivery was no good. The Journal reported that, hours later, she was dead from an overdose—her phone blowing up with a warning from Ortega that the batch was “really strong.” Mtangi and Ghahramani reportedly died in a similar manner.