A fentanyl trafficker from Flower Mound, who was responsible for distributing thousands of pills across North Texas, was sentenced Wednesday to more than eight years in federal prison, according to a news release from the office of Leigha Simonton, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
Stephen Paul Brinson, aka “Steve-O,” was charged in March and pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a Schedule II controlled substance (fentanyl), according to the news release. In plea papers, Brinson, 18, admitted to dealing fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills out of a Flower Mound home.
According to court documents, Brinson supplied fentanyl to a dealer in Carrollton, Donovan Andrews, who is allegedly tied to the fentanyl overdose of a 14-year-old girl. Brinson used Instagram to sell round blue pills imprinted “M/30” to resemble legitimate 30mg oxycodone pills, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In March, law enforcement searched Brinson’s Flower Mound home and recovered 1,800 fentanyl-laced pills, along with cocaine, marijuana and two firearms, according to the news release. They also found a note from Brinson’s parents warning him, “don’t meet people in front of the house or in view of the house.” Brinson’s father later told law enforcement he and his wife knew Stephen used fentanyl but claimed they did not know he was dealing pills in front of the home.
In plea papers, Brinson admitted that at the same time as the search, he was armed and en route to deliver a fentanyl pill to a customer in Flower Mound. Law enforcement followed him, arrested him and found two guns and a M/30 pill on him.
Right after his arrest in March, Brinson insisted he was “minding my own [expletive] business in my white-[expletive] house in Flower Mound,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Brinson also allegedly asserted that because he was white and living in Flower Mound, that was going to help him in his case.
