A Utah County man who gave heroin to a Provo mother the day before she died of an overdose has been sentenced to 16 months in a federal prison, while a co-defendant in the case was ordered to spend 30 months behind bars.
Edward Lee Poorman and Matthew Draper — who had both pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the distribution of heroin — were sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson to the 16-month and 30-month sentences, respectively.
In their pleas, 22-year-old Poorman and 36-year-old Draper admitted to facilitating the July 5, 2016, purchase and sale of three balloons of heroin with a total weight of one-half gram or less in Provo. Draper supplied drugs to Poorman, who, in turn, supplied them to the victim, according to prosecutors.
Court documents say a neighbor saw the Provo woman’s son outside the home on July 6, 2016, looking lost and afraid and he told her he could not get his mother to wake up. Another neighbor went inside and found the woman unresponsive and called 911, then performed CPR until emergency medical personnel arrived, the documents say.
The responders worked to save the woman but she was pronounced dead. A medical examiner’s report said the woman died from the combined effects of methamphetamine and heroin-derived morphine, court documents say.
Investigators say they found messages from a multiple-day conversation on the woman’s cell phone, apparently between her and Poorman, about getting heroin. Poorman admitted he and the woman secured heroin from his source on the evening of July 5, 2016, and said he did not see her again after she dropped him off at a gas station that night, according to court documents.