Former Middletown inmate pleads guilty to distributing fentanyl in jail
CINCINNATI – Eugene Mongar, 34, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to participating in a narcotics conspiracy in the Middletown Jail.
Timothy J. Plancon, Special Agent in Charge, U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, announced the plea entered into yesterday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett.
According to court documents, Mongar was a trustee inmate at the Middletown Jail in December 2017 when co-defendant Louis Cox III, 27, of Middletown, was arrested and booked for drug trafficking.
Cox is alleged to have smuggled fentanyl into the facility on Dec. 1, 2017. Officers were dispatched to the jail on Dec. 2, 2017 for several reported overdoses.
One of those inmates who had overdosed told officers Mongar had approached him with fentanyl in exchange for $20 worth of commissary.
Mongar admitted to distributing the fentanyl. Mongar himself overdosed three times within a two-day period from using the same fentanyl he was distributing.
Mongar and Cox were indicted by a federal grand jury in May 2018, at which time they were both transferred to federal custody.
Mongar pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Cox has also been charged with participating in a narcotics conspiracy, as well as distributing a controlled substance.
U.S. Attorney Glassman commended the investigation of this case by the DEA, the Middletown Police Department and Assistant United States Attorneys Ashley N. Brucato and Timothy D. Oakley, who are representing the United States in this case.
