Monessen man sentenced to federal prison
A Monessen man who reportedly admitted to selling the drugs that killed a Washington County man in 2015 was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for his involvement in drug dealing.
Chief U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti handed down the sentence – which also includes four years of federal probation – in Pittsburgh on Wednesday against 24-year-old Jalen C. Madison.
Madison pleaded guilty in November to a count of conspiring with others to deal heroin and fentanyl from sometime in 2013 until late October 2016.
Federal prosecutors said Madison admitted in court he’d provided the drugs that caused the Aug. 22, 2015, fatal overdose of John B. Watkins, 21, of Monongahela, the grandson of former California University of Pennsylvania president John P. Watkins.
Madison was a standout basketball player before he graduated from Monessen High School in 2012, helping the team win a WPIAL title his junior year. He had a basketball scholarship to attend Keystone College in Scranton, which he lost because of what his attorney, Nicola Henry-Taylor, termed “setbacks” in court papers.
Court records show Madison faces charges of simple assault, harassment and criminal trespassing in Westmoreland County in connection with an incident last month in his hometown.