A former inmate at the Campbell County Detention Center will spend decades in prison for smuggling fentanyl into the jail, causing the overdoses of two others in custody there.

Jonathan Stanley, 40, was sentenced in federal court in Covington on Thursday to 22 years in prison. That sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, is less than the 30 years prosecutors recommended.

Stanley pleaded guilty in February to a count of distribution of fentanyl resulting in serious bodily injury, the only charge stemming from his March 2023 indictment. He entered an open plea, which means he didn’t negotiate a deal with prosecutors.

Prosecutors said one of the two inmates who overdosed on the drugs provided by Stanley would’ve died without medical treatment.

Stanley was booked into the jail in November 2022 after being arrested by U.S. Marshals for violating the conditions of his supervised release from a prior conviction in federal court, prosecutors said.

On the same day Stanley was moved from an isolation cell to the general population, jail staff responded to a cell where an inmate had symptoms of a suspected overdose, including respiratory distress and seizure, prosecutors said.

After treating that inmate with Narcan and arranging for him to be taken to the hospital, another inmate in the same cell also began showing signs of an overdose.

One of the inmates later told investigators that they had consumed the same substance, which was supplied by Stanley in exchange for promises of money that would be deposited into his jail account, prosecutors said.

The inmate handed the remaining substance to deputy jailers and it was later identified as fentanyl.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Bracke said the inmates believed the substance was cocaine, though there’s no evidence Stanley tried to mislead them.

Jail surveillance video showed Stanley handing something to one of the inmates in the hallway outside their cell shortly before the overdoses, according to prosecutors.

Stanley told other inmates in isolation that he was carrying drugs and that he planned to distribute it once allowed to mingle with others at the facility, prosecutors said, adding agents didn’t conduct a full search when Stanley was arrested.

Prosecutors said both inmates have made a full recovery.

Bunning said that death resulting from Stanley distributing drugs throughout the jail would certainly have been worse. However, the judge noted the offense was serious because it happened inside a correctional facility.

“He was not in a good place mentally at that time,” Eric Eckes, Stanley’s attorney, said in court.

Eckes said that Stanley accepted responsibility for his actions and recognized the seriousness of his crime.

“I never meant for someone to get hurt by my actions,” Stanley told the judge, at times holding back tears.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Man gets prison for selling drugs to NKY inmates, causing overdoses