Transcript of Prosecutors say fentanyl poisoning is behind 3 deaths

March 17th, 2021, a day when three young lives were cut short. Ross Matangi, Amanda Sure, and Julia Garimani were in the prime of their lives until the unthinkable happened. In the morning, I woke up and hadn't heard from her, so I knew something was wrong. Amanda wouldn't hurt a fly. How could this happen? One day, one drug dealer, three senseless deaths, just blocks from each other, leaving behind a crater of grief.

He was told point blank that this batch of cocaine that he had laced with ventanyl was deadly. And yet he went ahead and delivered to three people who lost their lives.

What do you say to your friends or anyone who thinks, Well, it's just a little party drug. It's not going to hurt me? My sister thought the same thing, and it's not the same thing that it used to be. We're taking you inside one horrific case in New York City, revealing an avalanche of evidence obtained by ABC News, exposing a brazen drug ring, boosting their profits by lacing what clients think is cocaine with powerful fentanyl, which is cheaper, more addictive, and more deadly. Minute by minute, the case unfolding, the dealers' text messages, the courier's movements caught on camera, stitching together the final hours of three young professionals professionals before they took their final breaths.

I think of it as like a nuclear bomb dropped on us.

Ross Matangi was a Harvard grad, a successful Wall Street trading exec. He had just turned 40 and was about to be a dad. Dead. 36-year-old Amanda Sure was a social worker. Happy New Year. Amanda was your first born? Yes. Daddy's girl.

For sure.

Super empathetic, she was highly dedicated to her job and her patients at a hospital in the Bronx. Tell us about her personality.

She was always a very empathetic person. Things always mattered to her. She cared about people. She cared about things.

A city wonder widely. And Julia Garimani was a 26-year-old Ivy League attorney at a high-powered law firm who lived in downtown Manhattan.

Julia, she was very energetic. She loved to talk. She was full of joy. Julia is a force of in nature.

Texts show that around 2:00 in the afternoon, Julia, who had a big work deadline, messages a man investigators identified as Billy Ortega. Can you come through, she asks. Ortega responds, I'll send them right now if you want.

Billy Ortega is a cocaine dealer who, for about seven years, starting in 2015, had a very intricate delivery system where he would receive texts or phone calls from individuals who wanted cocaine, and he would distribute them out to his various couriers.

Surveillance video shows that about 45 minutes later, a man in a blue face mask is seen walking up to Julia's apartment building, buzzing himself in. Police identify him as one of Ortega's couriers, Kaylen Rainey. Just four hours later, around seven o'clock, Raine shows up with a small bag at Amanda, the social worker's apartment in Greenwich Village. About an hour later, Ortega begins texting her, checking in. Hey, try not to do too much because it's really strong. Meanwhile, Amanda's and Julia's family's unsuspecting. Looking back, I can't believe we didn't speak to her that night or try to call her because we always spoke to her at night. I texted her, See you this weekend, and she didn't respond.

We thought, well, maybe she's working on a big project.

The Garimanis had elaborate plans to gather for a Persian holiday, but they hadn't heard from Julia. Worried, they asked her friend Natalia to check in on her. Her response, ominous.

Natalia was just said, Can you guys need to come into the city? We kept calling Natalia and kept calling her. She picked up the phone and my dad asked, Just tell us that she's alive. And she couldn't respond. She couldn't say anything. So we pulled off the exit.

Greg was driving. I don't know. He just screamed. Meanwhile, Ortega seemed desperate to reach Julia, calling her seven times and texting her, Hey, can you give me a call? I need to ask you something real fast. Within hours and just blocks away, Amanda's dog walker arrived at her apartment and discovered the unimaginable.

The phone rang and when I picked it up, and there was an officer saying that Amanda Sherr has passed away. That wasn't the hardest part. The hardest part came when I had to go downstairs and tell Fran. So that was... That was really hard to do that.

Do you remember what you said to Fran You just came down and said, Amanda died, and I didn't come here. No, it's my baby. No. The NYPD are also called to a third scene and find a third victim, Ross. The banker had checked into a Midtown hotel. A review of the hotel surveillance footage found that same courier, Kaylyn Raney, also paid a visit to the building seen here in the elevator heading up to meet Ross. Photos from each crime scene show a white powdery substance, later confirmed to be cocaine laced with fentanyl.

They knew immediately that she had been poisoned with fentanyl.

What were the tell-tell signs?

The shape, your body position. People die slumped on the floor. You asphyxiate.

I don't think it's a in this death.

There are many people here who are not addicted to drugs. Maybe they're just a recreational user, completely unexpected of having fentanyl people in their drugs, and that is actually when it's the most deadly.

For nearly a year, authorities say Billy Ortega continued his operation as local and federal agencies continued to build the case against him.

The police were able to link Billy Ortega to these young people's deaths through a combination of physical evidence like the plastic bags that contain the drugs, the drugs themselves, but they also had something else. They had an electronic paper trail.

The text messages that Billy Ortega had were a gold mine, not just in the fact of distributing the drugs, but it showed that he had the knowledge that at one point in time, his cocaine was of a weaker variety, and that he himself knew that the drugs were getting stronger based on what was put into it.

Texts show that Ortega had been warned that his latest batch was dangerous, receiving an alarming text from a customer that read, Hey, man, I gave most of my last bag to my buddy, and he just called me the second to say he ended up in hospital last night. He had to get a NARCAN shot. In one text, Ortega sent to another drug dealer, Everyone is saying it's too strong. Give it to some girls and you let me know. L-o-l. How does the L-O-L hit you?

It's like, You killed my daughter and you don't care. No remorse, no regard, nothing. Just pure callous greed.

To prosecutors and to the jury, these messages signal that Billy Ortega did care about people's lives. He didn't care that the drugs he was pushing onto people could kill them.

It seems as though Ortega tried to warn his buyers about the potentially deadly batch. At one point, checking in with Amanda, writing, Hey, boss lady, you heard L-O-L? L-o-l, he's looking at it so lightly. How dare he? How dare he? He called her repeatedly. There were many missed calls on her phone. What does that tell you? Oh, he knew something was up.

He He knows at this time that the people he's calling and texting are likely dead. As opposed to doing the right thing, picking up the phone, calling 911, he does nothing. In fact, what he does is he switches his phone and he continues selling drugs.

Interview, take one, marker.

Damian Williams is the former US attorney for the Southern district of New York. Williams's team prosecuted the case against Billy Ortega and his drug ring.

This was a full-time operation. He became a wealthy man based on the drugs that he was selling.

A lot of the family members that we've spoken to really want to draw that distinction between an overdose and a poisoning. Absolutely. Why is that important?

Because so much of this is about these dealers, these cartels, these companies, robbing people of choice. We're talking about teenagers who think they're taking a Xanax, and instead, they're taking a pill that slaced with fentanyl. To call it overdose, I think, really misunderstands the moment that we're in.

It took about a year, but the authorities arrested Billy Ortega, and they charged him with supplying the fentanyl that ultimately killed Ross and Amanda and Julia, linking him to those deaths. The trial of Billy Ortega took barely two weeks before a jury was convinced he was guilty. The very courier that was seen on surveillance images showing up at their houses to give them the drugs, he ended up pleading guilty and testifying against Ortega.

He was convicted on three counts of narcotics distribution resulting in death. Would you consider that justice?

Justice would be if he gets life in prison.

Today was the end of a two and a half year process after the death of our respective children were poisoned with fentanyl.

Just last year, Billy Ortega was sentenced to 30 years in prison. For the families, it wasn't long enough.

The sentence that was imposed was below what we wanted. We had asked for life in prison because Billy Ortega killed three people.

What messages is sending out to other people? This is not going to do anything to help stem the use of Fentanyl.

I wake up and I realize that Julia is never going to be here again and that there is true evil in the world. Still, their fight isn't over.

This case brought out a lot of awareness, and that's in large part thanks to Ross and Julia and Amanda and their families. But the fentanyl problem in the country is not going away. Fentanyl is showing up in other drugs, partly because the drug dealers want people hooked. That's why law enforcement is continuing the fight.

Our mission is to make sure that this doesn't happen. The reason why we're talking now is because it's still happening.

Justice for Julia is acting and acting now. Nobody should be putting up with this. People need to be solving this problem.

If you or someone you know needs help with addiction, please call or text 988.