How the ‘Len Bias Law’ of 1988 is being used to get longer prison sentences today

A federal judge has enacted a little-used statute named after a college basketball star who died of a drug overdose to sentence a Wilson man to more than 25 years in prison after selling a batch of heroin that led to another man’s death.

Elton Wayne Walston was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after he was found guilty of distributing heroin that resulted in the death of a Wilson man in 2015. Walston, 66, was also found guilty of one count each of possession with intent to distribute heroin and illegally possessing a firearm and ammunition, along with four counts of distribution of heroin.

U.S. District Court Judge Louise W. Flanagan handed down the sentence, which was announced Tuesday in Raleigh by Robert J. Higdon Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Walston was sentenced under the U.S. Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which carries a mandatory minimum prison term of 20 years and a maximum life sentence, along with a fine of up to $2 million, Higdon said. The statute is also known as the Len Bias Law, named for the first-team all-American basketball player at the University of Maryland who died of a cocaine overdose in June 1986, two days after he was the second overall pick by the Boston Celtics in the 1986 NBA draft.

A charge of second-degree murder might sound more imposing, but a conviction under the Len Bias Law usually results in a longer prison sentence, said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Boz Zellinger.

Unlike in cases of second-degree murder, prosecutors do not have to prove malice, only that the victim’s death was caused by ingesting the drugs.

Critics say the basketball player’s death led to federal laws that caused “the New Jim Crow” of mass incarceration in America and draconian measures such as mandatory minimum sentencing. They point to reforms taken by the Obama administration, such as directing federal prosecutors to avoid mandatory minimum sentences for lower-level, nonviolent drug offenses. Moreover, critics say President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have re-started a decades-long, unsuccessful war on drugs that largely targets communities of color.

But Higdon said the opioid crisis is a matter of life and death. The federal statute, he said, is needed to help combat a soaring epidemic that resulted in 60,000 drug overdoses across America last year. He said 1,100 people died of overdoses last year in North Carolina, with three dying each day across the state.

“The death result law will be used more and more frequently,” Higdon said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon at the Terry Sanford Federal Building in downtown Raleigh. “Our office, along with the entire U.S. Department of Justice, is determined to hold accountable those who deal these deadly drugs to enrich themselves. This prosecution is an example of that determination.”

U.S. Assistant Attorney Edward Gray said Walston first came to the attention of federal prosecutors after a member of a drug task force in Wilson reported a rise in heroin overdoses in the area.

In 2015, local police and federal drug agents identified Walston as a major source of heroin in the Wilson, Greenville and Nash County area. The investigators also confirmed that Walston sold heroin that led to a Wilson man’s death that year.

On March 27 that year, Sarah Anne Mollenhauer, 32, called the mother of the overdose victim and told the woman her son was not breathing, Higdon said. The victim was at his brother’s home in Wilson.

When police arrived at the home, Mollenhauer told the officers she and the victim “hung out” the prior evening. Mollenhauer said she left the victim around 12:30 a.m. to meet her boyfriend, who is a nurse. She told police she returned to the home to check on the victim, who was on the floor with his eyes closed and breathing heavily, Higdon reported.

Mollenahauer said she and her boyfriend left the home again at 1:30 a.m. When she returned at 5:30 a.m. she found the victim lying on the bathroom floor and not breathing. Emergency workers arrived and pronounced the man dead at 6:21 a.m., Higdon said.

Mollenhauer pleaded guilty to distribution of a quantity of heroin and aiding and abetting. She was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Walston’s aunt, Emma Hardeman, a retired teacher who lives in Chicago, said Tuesday that her nephew is not the “big-time drug dealer” portrayed by federal prosecutors during his trial and at Tuesday’s press conference.

Hardeman said Walston was a former U.S. Air Force serviceman who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome after serving in Vietnam. She said her nephew was a longtime “functional addict” who sold drugs to support his own habit.

“He was a nickle-and-dime person,” she said. “He couldn’t even keep the lights and cable on. He didn’t have a $100,000 and a 100 pounds of heroin when they arrested him. He was a victim, too.”

Hardeman said prosecutors should have held Mollenhauer more responsible. She said Mollenhauer and her boyfriend returned to the victim’s home twice as he lay dying to take money from his wallet to buy more heroin.

Hardeman said family members have met with several federal lawyers and intend to appeal Walston’s sentence.

“We are not going to lay down and let this die without fighting back,” she said.

This story was originally published October 31, 2017 at 5:41 PM with the headline "How the ‘Len Bias Law’ of 1988 is being used to get longer prison sentences today."