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Jeremiah Hargrove is one of seven people to ever be charged with death by distribution in Orange County.
Three years after a Carboro man died from an overdose, the man accused of selling him the drugs is going to trial.
The charge, death by distribution, is relatively new to the North Carolina court system.
The law has been in effect since 2019, making it relatively new when it comes to a legal sense, and it’s being used all across the state.
Law professionals said it can get very complicated when trying to prosecute someone for selling a deadly dose. Since 2019, when the charge of death by distribution became law, Jeremiah Hargrove is one of seven people to ever be charged with it in Orange County. The charges came after 21-year-old Delise Ndinga Momo died of an overdose.
“If it saves one life, it’s worth it,” said retired judge Carl Fox.
Fox said it has its difficulties in getting through the court.
“You have a little bit of difficulty because the main person you need is deceased,” Fox said.
Fox says to get a conviction there needs to be hard evidence of the sale.
“They are, by their very nature, difficult cases,” Fox said.
Hargrove’s trial is just beginning. The prosecutors will lay out their evidence over the course of the trial’s early days. Court records said he sold indigamomo fentanyl in 2023, less than a week after his 21st birthday.
Family members remembering him as a handsome, talented, strong and generous person according to the GoFundMe they created back then. He’s one of the more than 23,000 North Carolinians to die from an opioid overdose since the death by distribution law was created. In that same time frame, according to the Fentanyl Victims Network, nearly 400 people have been charged in relation to selling the drugs that caused those deaths.
You have to say that it’s accomplishing something, and there should be risks involved for people out there dealing dangerous addictive drugs, because that’s the kind of thing that can kill people,” Fox said.
If Hargrove is found guilty, he faces up to five to six years in prison. That trial is expected to continue throughout the week.