Rock Hill man gets 27 years in prison for secret NC laundry room fentanyl lab

A Rock Hill man who operated a secret fentanyl pill lab out of a laundry room in North Carolina received 27 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

Quavion Maurice Pickett, 30, trafficked the fentanyl pills around Fayetteville, N.C. before he was arrested in October 2022 in South Carolina, said Michael Easley, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina .

Police seized more than 6 and a half pounds of fentanyl and counterfeit pills stamped to look like a different opioid and a pill press from the Fayetteville home where Pickett was staying at the time in 2022, Easley said in news release .

Drug agents later arrested Pickett in South Carolina where they seized more than 19,000 pills and other contraband related to the drug trade.

Pickett pleaded guilty in April before being sentenced in federal court in Wilmington, N.C., records show.

“These pills are made with zero quality-control, with narcotics being mixed in plastic bins and store-bought blenders by reckless, money-hungry narcotics dealers who care only about money and care nothing for human life,” Easley said. “Never, ever, take a pill bought on the street or online that isn’t prescribed by a real doctor. You are gambling with your life.”

Fentanyl is around 50 times more potent than heroin and has been a part of overdose deaths locally and across the country, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and officials in both Carolinas. Law enforcement says fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is cheap, easy to get, highly addictive, and lethal.

In York County near Rock Hill in October 2022, drug agents seized over 60 pounds of fentanyl from a separate secret drug lab near Lake Wylie. Five area men have pleaded guilty in federal court in South Carolina in that case and await sentencing of 10 years to life.