Man gets 33 years in drug case

PHOTO BY JILL GOSCHE Tyree Carpenter (right) sits next to his attorney, Merle Dech Jr., during his sentencing hearing Thursday afternoon. Deputy Daniel Shaferly of Seneca County Sheriff's Office sits nearby. A Fostoria man was sentenced to 33 years in prison after a jury convicted him of 13 drug-related counts Thursday afternoon. Tyree L. Carpenter, 36, was found guilty of one count of involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree felony; two counts of corrupting another with drugs, both second-degree felonies; one count of trafficking in heroin, a third-degree felony; two counts of aggravated trafficking in drugs and one count of trafficking in cocaine, all fourth-degree felonies; and two counts of possession of heroin, two counts of possessing criminal tools and one count each of possession of cocaine and trafficking in heroin, all fifth-degree felonies. He was acquitted of a charge of trafficking in crack cocaine, a fifth-degree felony. During her opening statement Monday, Stephanie Kiser, assistant Seneca County prosecutor, had said the case was about drug trafficking and drug possession involving numerous controlled substances. It was an extensive and lengthy investigation with numerous searches, drug sales and overdoses, with one being fatal, she said. Carpenter had been accused of causing the death of Steffen Yarris as a proximate result of committing or attempting to commit a charge of aggravated trafficking in drugs. Seneca County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Kelbley sentenced Carpenter to 30 years in prison after the verdicts were announced. He granted credit for 754 days served and ordered Carpenter to pay restitution totaling more than $7,000 for funeral expenses. Kelbley also ordered Carpenter to serve three years in prison for a previous drug case in which Carpenter pleaded guilty to four counts of trafficking in heroin, all fifth-degree felonies. He suspended Carpenter's driver's license for six months and ordered him to pay a $360 fine. During the sentencing hearing, Kiser called Carpenter a "career drug dealer." "Defendant believed he was above the law," she said. Kiser said Carpenter had been trafficking in drugs in the community for more than a decade and had no desire to be rehabilitated. He had been undeterred by prior prison and community control sanctions and continuous police attention, she said. "He has intensified his criminal behavior," she said. Kiser said Carpenter continuously had been poisoning the community and had been preying upon addicts' addictions and diseases. Carpenter is not an addict and was not selling drugs to support his own addiction, she said. The type of trafficking in which Carpenter engaged is reprehensible, Kiser said. Yarris' mother, Mary Jane Yarris of Findlay, spoke during the sentencing hearing. She said she lost her only child, and the loss for her had been devastating. "The drug epidemic is so prevalent in our society, it knows no boundaries," she said. Carpenter has a history of dealing drugs in the Fostoria area, Mary Jane Yarris said. "This can be stopped today by the court imposing the maximum sentence," she said. Elizabeth Yarris — Steffen Yarris' aunt and a sister to his father, Donald Yarris — read a statement Donald Yarris had written before his death in August. "Steffen, my only child, was the center of my life. … Nothing is the same," she said. Elizabeth Yarris, reading from the letter, said Steffen Yarris had a disease but didn't deserve to die. "(Carpenter) preyed on others' weaknesses," she said. The trial started in Kelbley's courtroom Monday. The jury of three men and nine women deliberated for about two and a half hours Wednesday and about four hours and 45 minutes Thursday. Carpenter, who must forfeit money and cellphones, declined to speak before sentencing. He requested an attorney for appeal purposes.