A Silver Spring man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt on Thursday to a charge of distribution of fentanyl that resulted in the death of a Bethesda teen in 2022, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
Mikiyas Kefyalew, 26, “knowingly and intentionally distributed” fentanyl to the unnamed victim, according to court documents. The 16-year-old had contacted Kefyalew on Snapchat in January 2022, wanting to purchase “Percs,” or drugs that resemble Percocet and contain oxycodone hydrochloride, according to the press release.
Kefyalew met with the victim and sold him two pills, according to the release. The victim was found dead in his home the following morning.
The victim’s family recovered the second pill, which was tested by the Montgomery County police department’s forensic laboratory and produced positive results for fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl, according to the release. The police department was able to track down Kefyalew based on a 2021 citation for marijuana possession, in which officials recovered a similar looking pill in the same bag as the marijuana, the release stated.
Police were able to discern from Kefyalew’s phone messages that he was aware these look-alike pills contained fentanyl and that he knew the risks of an overdose, according to the news release.
“Based upon these pills’ purporting to be oxycodone hydrochloride pills, Kefyalew knowingly misrepresented or knowingly marketed the fentanyl pills as oxycodone hydrochloride, or
‘Percs,’” the Department of Justice said in a news release. “Kefyalew knew that [the victim] was a vulnerable victim based on [their] appearance, school attendance and age.”
Kefyalew faces up to 20 years in federal prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 28, 2025.
Montgomery County Police, Rockville City Police, Prince George’s County Police, the Metropolitan Police, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration collaborated on the investigation.
