A 43-year-old Morrisville man has been sentenced to state prison for providing the fentanyl-laced pills that resulted in the overdose death of a Bristol Township man in 2022.
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Joeshae Bussey was sentenced on Wednesday at the Justice Center to serve seven to 14 years in a state correctional institution by Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Wallace Bateman Jr., according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Bussey had pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of drug delivery resulting in death, possession of a controlled substance, criminal use of a communication facility, and involuntary manslaughter.
The victim, Ryan Dillon, 37, was found deceased on December 23, 2022, in a second-floor bedroom of his residence on Kindle Lane in the Levittown section of Bristol Township.
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Next to Dillon’s body, police discovered a small zip-lock bag containing four round blue tablets that resembled 30 mg oxycodone pills, as well as a pill bottle with alprazolam prescribed to Dillon. The substances were sent to a crime lab for analysis, authorities said.
A lab later determined that the supposed oxycodone pills contained fentanyl, methamphetamine, and xylazine, with one tablet also containing lidocaine, authorities said.
The Bucks County Coroner’s Office report attributed Dillon’s death to intoxication from fentanyl and alprazolam.
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Investigators recovered two cellphones from Dillon’s room and, used one to trace a text message conversation with Bussey from December 22, 2022, about the purchase of oxycodone pills.
The investigation revealed that Dillon and Bussey had known each other from living at the same recovery house and had agreed to meet near a sports bar on Haines Road for the pill transaction. Surveillance footage confirmed their meeting on the afternoon of December 22, authorities said.
Another resident of the Kindle Lane home reported seeing Dillon leave the house between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on December 22, 2022, and return 20 minutes later. After, he was not seen or heard from again, authorities said.
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