NEW ORLEANS – U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that JARON BIAS, age 29, of New Orleans, was sentenced on June 16, 2021 after pleading guilty to Count 1 of a Superseding Bill of Information charging him in a heroin conspiracy. Members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating BIAS in August 2017, when they learned from a confidential source that BIAS was distributing heroin in the Black Pearl neighborhood in Orleans Parish as well as in Jefferson Parish.
Following BIAS’s August 23, 2017 arrest for distribution of heroin, FBI agents recovered multiple cellular telephones belonging to BIAS. Agents applied for search warrants on the cellular devices and located numerous text communications dating back to November 2015 proving that BIAS was selling heroin in the Greater New Orleans area.
The FBI conducted interviews with many of BIAS’s customers who were listed in his cellular telephones. During the interview process, agents learned that on June 29, 2015, BIAS distributed heroin to an individual who overdosed as a result of the heroin he purchased from BIAS. According to witnesses who were with the deceased prior to his death, the deceased contacted BIAS and negotiated the sale of $100.00 worth of heroin. After meeting and purchasing heroin from BIAS at Carver Park in New Orleans, the deceased and the witness injected the heroin. The deceased became unresponsive and died at the scene. The Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office declared that the deceased died as a result of a heroin overdose.
United States District Court Judge Martin L.C. Feldman sentenced BIAS to a term of imprisonment of 78 months in the Bureau of Prisons, a period of supervised release of 3 years, and a mandatory special assessment of $100.00.
U.S. Attorney Evans praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New Orleans Police Department and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in investigating this matter. Assistant United States Attorney Brittany L. Reed is in charge of the prosecution.
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