A Maryland man was sentenced to 9-and-a-half years in federal prison for selling a 34-year-old Montgomery County woman the dose of fentanyl that killed her.
Debbie Coldsmith left the federal courthouse in Greenbelt surrounded by a group of Maryland mothers who have lost children to overdoses – most from fentanyl.
“I will never have my daughter again, so like I said, it’s a life sentence for me, so, of course, I mean, what’s seven years?” Coldsmith said. “That’s nothing. I won’t get my daughter back in seven years. I’ll never get my daughter back.”
With time served since his arrest after the 2020 overdose of Lauren Aument, who was the mother of three young children, Enitan Agbi, 38, will serve about seven more years in prison.
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“One of the things her 6-year-old says to me is can I bring mommy back,” Debbie Coldsmith said.
Agbi, who pleaded guilty in May, expressed remorse.
Judge Paul Grimm told him he hoped the sentencing conditions, including drug treatment, would make him change, saying, “Never again, through your involvement, will another mother suffer that type of loss.”
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Coldsmith lost her only child, but she was not alone in the courtroom. Members of Surviving Our Ultimate Loss surrounded her. But unlike her, most of them have never been able to see the dealer – the person who sold their child the fatal dose of fentanyl – in a courtroom.
“You have to be pounding the pavement every single solitary day telling our children’s stories,” said Deena Loudon, who lost her 21-year-old son to an overdose.
Agbi also was ordered to pay $1,100 toward the cost of Lauren Coldsmith’s funeral.
