New Bedford Fentanyl Dealer Gets 10 Years in Prison

NEW BEDFORD — A city man with a prior manslaughter conviction will serve up to 12 years in state prison, after police found hundreds of grams of fentanyl hidden in a kids' bedroom in his apartment.

Kenny Gonzalez, 44, was arrested in September along with his girlfriend, 33-year-old Iliana Sanchez-Pagan, after police allegedly just under 600 grams of the narcotic at the couple's Nash Road home.

Gonzalez had been running a fentanyl delivery service out of the apartment, which he shared with Sanchez-Pagan and her two young children, according to the Bristol County District Attorney's office.

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Police had gotten the search warrant for his 518 Nash Rd. apartment as part of an investigation into his fentanyl delivery activities.

During the search, they found a lockbox and safe containing all 600 grams of fentanyl in pills and powder in the children's bedroom, according to the D.A.'s office.

Along with the drugs police also found bags of cutting agent, several digital scales, a drug ledger, three cell phones, and bags and other packaging materials.

Gonzalez had been released from a New York prison after serving a first degree manslaughter sentence just one and a half years before his arrest in New Bedford.

He will spend 10-12 years in prison, after he was sentenced last week in Fall River Superior Court.

"The defendant was found with a significant amount of fentanyl, a poisonous drug that is contributing to a significant amount of death and misery in our county," Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn commented.

"Given the volume of drugs he was selling as part of his fentanyl delivery service, he clearly is a danger and needs to be kept off the street."