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Thursday, April 18, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Guilty Plea From Dealer Linked to Festival Death

MANHATTAN (CN) - After one of his Molly customers at the dance festival Electric Zoo died last year, a drug dealer pleaded guilty Thursday to a conspiracy charge.

Patrick Morgan, 24, of Buffalo, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute narcotics.

The Justice Department's announcement on the plea, together with that court filing and the underlying indictment, give few details on the dead concertgoer, Jeffrey Russ.

It says Russ and two others had bought Molly, the nickname typically given to generally adulterant-free ecstasy, from Morgan for an electronic-music concert in Buffalo in early August 2013.

Planning to cap off the month at Electric Zoo, a three-day outdoor festival on Randall's Island over Labor Day weekend, Russ and his two friends bought another 80 ecstasy pills from Morgan.

After taking some of those pills on Aug. 30, the first day of the festival, Russ collapsed and had a seizure.

Emergency medical technicians treated Russ at the festival, but he arrived unresponsive at Harlem Hospital and died at 3:21 a.m. the next morning.

His cause of death was acute intoxication by the combined effect of MDMA and methylone with hyperthermia.

Prosecutors said the pills that Morgan sold Russ and the two others contained MDMA and methylone.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos will sentence Morgan at 10:30 a.m. on March 13, 2015.

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