Salisbury Man Pleads Guilty to Dealing Fentanyl Across Maryland’

BALTIMORE, Md. – A Salisbury man is facing more than a decade in prison after he pleaded guilty to dealing fentanyl and fentayl-like products across Maryland’s Eastern Shore. One person died from ingesting the drugs in his possession.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Narada Walls, 38 of Salisbury, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to possess and to distribute fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, which are substances meant to have similar effects to fentanyl and according to the DOJ, can be just as deadly. 

The investigation started in the fall of 2017.

The DOJ said police were investigating a drug trafficking organization operating on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Baltimore. 

Police discovered Walls was a part of the operation, using assumed names and a fake email address to buy methoxyacetyl fentanyl directly from suppliers in China. Walls then shipped the drugs to several addresses of his acquaintances on Maryland’s Eastern Shore so he could distance himself from the shipments.

During the September and November months of 2017, police had a confidential source buy fentanyl analogue substances from Walls. The source met Walls each time in Baltimore, where Walls would explain the potency of the product and how it needed to be diluted with other agents, or an overdose would happen.

In December of 2017, police executed a search warrant at Walls’ Salisbury home, where they found 419 grams of methoxyacetyl fentanyl and approximately $18,650 in drug proceeds. Police also found a number of other drug-related paraphernalia. 

Under his plea agreement, Walls also agreed that he had a relationship with a recovering heroin user in June 2017. During that time, a witness said Walls asked the woman to clean up the kitchen, the room he used to mix his drugs. 

The DOJ said the the woman ingested some of the product while trying to clean the blender and Walls found her on the kitchen floor later that day. Paramedics were called but she did not survive, and an autopsy revealed she had died because of the exposure to the drug product.

Walls’ plea agreement required that he forfeit all of the items of value seized by police, which totaled to almost $30,000 in cash that police found in his home in December 2017 and in his car during a June 2017 search.

The DOJ and Walls agreed to a 12-year prison sentence, which will be recommended to a U.S. District Judge during his hearing on June 21, 2019.