South Deerfield man charged with distributing counterfeit pills | News

WHATELY, MA (WGGB/WSHM) — A Franklin County man is facing federal charges after allegedly distributing counterfeit oyxocodone pills that contained fentanyl.

The investigation spans over several western Massachusetts communities and two states.

Investigators have not revealed much about what was found inside the upstairs apartment of a house on State Road in Whately.

However, they said drug sales made in Kansas earlier this year are why a tenant in a Whately home is now facing 10 charges.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas said that 32-year-old Anthony Stokes of South Deerfield was arrested Tuesday in Massachusetts on charges including five counts of distributing fentanyl and five counts of selling counterfeit drugs.

A federal indictment unsealed in Kansas Wednesday alleges that Stokes sold 114 tablets with counterfeit identifying marks belonging to a pharmaceutical company.

“The tablets contained more than 14.6 grams of fentanyl,” the U.S. Attorney’s office added.

The crimes allegedly took place from December 2018 through February 2019 in Wyandotte County, Kansas.

Investigators streamed in and out of the second floor apartment of a nearly two-century old house on Tuesday over the alleged sale of a drug with a fairly new reputation for being deadly.

Mary Carey, spokesperson for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office, said that on Tuesday, search warrants were executed at locations in Whately, Deerfield, and Greenfield.

Carey added that local police and members of the D.A.’s Anti-Crime Task Force aided the FDA Office of Criminal Investigation, the DEA, and US Postal Inspection Service in serving those warrants.

Because inhaling an amount of fentanyl grains the size of a few grains of salt can prove fatal, people in Whately are concerned about what was going on behind closed doors.

“Absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing. You wouldn’t know anything was going on. There’s always different cars and I think the people that live there in the 19 years I’ve been here have been transient. There’s new people there all the time, so you never really know who’s living over there,” said Fran Phelps of Whately.

We spoke with others in the community. No one seemed to know anything about Stokes and said no suspicious activity ever happened around the house.

Neighbors told Western Mass News that Stokes hadn’t lived there for more than a few months and they said with the rise of the opioid crisis, even their small town isn’t immune.

“Today. in this day and age, things happen in all the towns…you never know what’s going to happen,” Phelps added.

Western Mass News will continue to follow this story and will have more information as it becomes available.

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