Newmarket Man Pleads Guilty in Overdose Death of Portsmouth Woman

CONCORD, NH - A Seacoast man has pled guilty to distribution of controlled substance resulting in death in U.S. District Court on June 9, 2016, according to a press statement.

Benjamin Rogers, 31, of Newmarket, worked with Cassandra Clermont, 30, at a Portsmouth restaurant known as the Bratskellar. On Oct. 17, 2014, text messages and witness statements showed that Rogers left the restaurant and later returned to the restaurant parking lot, where he met with Clermont and provided her with a quantity of drugs. She later left the restaurant, went to her apartment in Portsmouth, and was found dead the next day, with fentanyl and drug paraphernalia near her body, according to U.S. Attorney Emily Gray Rice.

The state’s medical examiner’s officer found that Clermont died of acute fentanyl intoxication. More than half of the drug overdoses in New Hampshire last year were as a result of fentanyl, according to officials.

Portsmouth Police asked for assistance in finding out who provided drugs to Clermont and later, found out that Rogers was involved in the case and had deleted text messages from his phone between himself and Clermont, according to police.

“I want to thank the Portsmouth Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Newmarket Police Department, the New Hampshire Medical Examiner’s Office and the Rockingham County Attorney’s Office for their work on this case,” Rice said in a statement. “Fighting the opioid epidemic is a multi-pronged, team effort. One facet of our attack is to prosecute those who are criminally responsible for causing drug overdoses. We will continue to work with law enforcement agencies to identify and prosecute the individuals who distribute drugs that cause overdose deaths. Any drug distribution has the potential to be deadly, regardless of the quantity of drugs involved. When a drug distribution causes an overdose death, my office will seek to hold the distributor accountable.”

Clermont was a graduate of Nashua High School and the Empire Beauty Academy, according to her obituary, and enjoyed working Boston sports teams and her friends and family.