2 drug dealers implicated in Lusher student’s death plead guilty
Two men to serve prison time in teen’s heroin death
by Gordon Russell, The Times-Picayune
Thursday May 01, 2008, 8:24 AM
Two young men charged with providing the heroin that helped kill a Lusher High School student in January are expected to serve prison sentences of up to 15 years after they pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal charge of conspiring to distribute heroin.
One of the defendants, David “Bird” Battenberg, also pleaded guilty to a second charge of selling heroin to a person younger than 21. Battenberg, 27, and his co-defendant, Diego Perez, 18, are scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 6 by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier. …
Had Battenberg’s and Perez’s participation in the drug trade not been linked to a fatal overdose, the two would be facing far shorter sentences. But in their plea agreements, both stipulated that their conduct “led directly to the overdose death of 16-year-old Madeleine Prevost,” according to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office.
Another defendant in the case, Henry Deeb Gabriel, 23, who was charged along with Perez and Battenberg, has not come to an agreement with authorities and is expected to go to trial. Gabriel is accused of buying the heroin — through Perez and Battenberg — that Prevost ingested on the night before she died.
[more]