30-Year Sentence For Dispensing Cocaine, Causing Fatal Overdose: Feds

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — A man with residences in Freeport in Westbury was sentenced on Thursday to 30 years in prison for distributing heroin, which led to a 2018 fatal overdose, prosecutors announced.

James Tunstall, also known as "Math," was found guilty in a February trial.

"As proven at trial, the defendant feigned addiction to misuse a rehab program to
get out of jail, where he met vulnerable individuals he could sell drugs to, including the victim,”
United States Attorney Breon Peace said. "It is our hope that today’s sentence serves both as a
deterrent to those peddling dangerous narcotics in our communities and as a measure of comfort
to the victim’s family, that callous disregard for human life will never be accepted."

Tunstall was a drug dealer who regularly sold cocaine and heroin to customers in Nassau County, according to court documents.

Tunstall’s co-defendant, Jay Tenem, who Tunstall also met as part of a drug rehabilitation program, delivered the fatal dose of heroin from Tunstall to 24-year-old Sergio Niko Alvarez on October 28, 2018 in Jericho, Peace said.

"Defendant Tunstall continuously dealt illegal drugs to Nassau County residents which contaminated our communities," Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said. "This also resulted in the fatal overdose of a 24-year-old male and the defendant is now held accountable."