Navy seaman sold fellow sailor fentanyl-laced Percocet that led to his death — then tried to cover it up, feds say
Seaman Bailey Szramowski, 27, knew the pills were laced, but sold them to at least two shipmates anyway, according to federal investigators
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Your support makes all the difference.A U.S. Navy seaman is accused of pulling double duty as a shipboard drug dealer while serving on the San Diego-based nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, only getting caught after a batch of bogus Percocet tainted with fentanyl killed a fellow sailor.
Bailey Szramowski, 27, knew the pills were laced, but sold them to at least two shipmates anyway, according to a federal complaint filed Tuesday.
Szramowski, who does not yet have an attorney listed in court records, was unable to be reached for comment. A Navy spokesman told The Independent he would look into Szramowski’s service status as he awaits trial.
The USS Lincoln is known as the carrier on which former President George W. Bush delivered his now-infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003, declaring major combat operations in Iraq to be over amid fighting that continued to drag on for another nine years.
The case against Szramowski, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native, stems from a fatal January 3, 2023, overdose that left a USS Lincoln sailor dead, according to the complaint. The victim, identified in court filings only as “A.N.,” was on leave at the time, staying in an RV parked outside his aunt and uncle’s house in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Officers from the San Leandro Police Department say they searched the RV and discovered “evidence of drug use — specifically, a rolled-up dollar bill that had a white substance fall out when investigators handled it,” the complaint states. An autopsy later concluded that A.N. had died of “acute fentanyl intoxication.”
Ten days after A.N.’s death, a second sailor stationed onboard the USS Lincoln was rushed to the hospital following an apparent OD, the complaint goes on. It says first responders successfully revived the sailor, who is identified in the complaint as “C.L.,” with Narcan, a prescription nasal spray used to counteract opioid overdoses.
Following C.L.’s release from the hospital on January 17, 2023, he agreed to cooperate with Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents probing the source of the fentanyl, according to the complaint. He fingered Szramowski as his dealer, and said he and other sailors had been buying Percosets — branded oxycodone pills, which, in this instance, investigators believe were counterfeit — for roughly a year, the complaint explains.
Szramowski sold the pills to C.L. about 10 times during the USS Lincoln’s 2022 deployment to the South China Sea, and another four times after the carrier returned to San Diego, including on the day of his OD, according to the complaint. It says C.L. told agents that Szramowski’s source sent the pills to a Post Office Box in Coronado, California, and that Szramowski’s shipboard customers typically paid him via CashApp.
When Szramowski heard that C.L. was planning to meet with NCIS, he called him and said to tell the agents he had in fact gotten the deadly pills from A.N., the complaint contends.
In a separate interview with NCIS, A.N.’s aunt and uncle, who were the ones to find A.N.’s body, said Szramowski called them once he heard the news and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince them to delete any messages from him on A.N.’s phone, the complaint goes on. It says Szramowski was concerned that if law enforcement saw the exchanges, “he ‘might go down for murder,’ or it would ‘ruin his future,’ or words to that effect.”
Next, NCIS agents interviewed A.N.’s former fiancée, “G.G.,” according to the complaint. She confirmed that Szramowski had been A.N.’s plug, and told the agents that Szramowski also got high on his own supply, the complaint continues.
G.G. said she had driven with A.N. to his aunt and uncle’s place in Northern California, where he died, according to the complaint. On the way there, G.G. told NCIS, A.N. showed her a baggie containing 10 “Percocets” he said he bought from Szramowski for $100, the complaint states. In the aftermath of A.N.’s fatal overdose, G.G. said she went through his belongings and found only nine pills left in the baggie, according to the complaint.
The complaint says G.G. told the NCIS agents that Szramowski had “admitted to her in person that he gave A.N. the fentanyl-laced pills, but he claimed, ‘it wasn’t [his] fault’ because he ‘told [A.N.] the pills were different,’ implying that A.N. had fair warning of the lethal nature of the pills he had purchased from Szramowski.”
NCIS performed a forensic extraction of A.N.’s cell phone, which they say turned up numerous messages between him and Szramowski in which they “regularly discussed drug use and drug sales — including ‘perc[s],’ ‘coca,’ ‘coke,’ ‘blow,’ ‘vics,’ ‘hydrocodone,’ ‘lsd,’ ‘shrooms,’ and ‘ecstasy,’” the complaint states. “They also occasionally filmed themselves using drugs.”
Agents also reviewed A.N.’s CashApp account records, and located the $100 payment to Szramowski for the pills on which he allegedly ODed, according to the complaint.
Szramowski is facing one count of distribution of fentanyl resulting in death. If convicted, he faces a prison sentence of 20 years to life.