A 27-year-old Brown County man is facing a possibility of up to 30 years in prison after police reported finding evidence on his Facebook Messenger that he sold drugs to a man who died of an overdose less than two hours later.
Ryne Franks was charged on July 22 with dealing in a controlled substance resulting in death, a Level 2 felony, and dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 5 felony.
This is the first dealing in a controlled substance resulting in death charge the Brown County Prosecutor’s Office has filed. The statute has only been in place for a year, Prosecutor Ted Adams said last week.
The statute was put in place because the state legislature “wanted to give law enforcement and prosecutors a tool to help combat dealers that feed the terrible opioid addiction in our respective local communities,” he said.
Det. Paul Henderson with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department was granted a search warrant that included anything on Franks’ Facebook account. He received the information on July 9.
Henderson began an investigation into Franks after a fatal overdose that occurred May 18 in Helmsburg.
Coroner Earl Piper said the victim had six times the “therapeutic” level of fentanyl in his system. He called it an accidental overdose.
Henderson said he initiated the investigation into Franks selling narcotics after that incident and “several others,” he wrote in a probable-cause affidavit.
The overdose victim had fentanyl, morphine and “designer opioids” in his system when he passed, Henderson reported. A timeline began to develop involving the victim purchasing and using illegal drugs before his death.
Franks’ Messenger showed a message from the victim asking Franks if he had a “40.” Franks later responded that the victim could come to his house to “chill for a second,” the report said.
They made plans for the victim to come over around 9:49 p.m. At 10:15 p.m., the victim messaged someone else asking for a ride to her house, saying he was ready to be picked up, the affidavit said.
The victim overdosed at around 11 p.m. A person in the home knocked on the door of the bathroom after he’d been in there for at least 40 minutes, and when he did not answer, emergency services were called at around 12:19 a.m. May 18, according to the affidavit. Responders found the victim deceased a short time later.
On May 27, Franks messaged someone saying everyone was blaming him for the victim’s death. He said he sold the victim a “20” and that he did it “here,” which Henderson presumed was Franks’ apartment. He said the victim was “fine.”
The person Franks messaged on May 27 had asked him for suboxone on May 25. On May 29, Franks asked the man if he wanted to buy suboxone and gave two prices and amounts.
On June 13, Franks was arrested. Police executed several search warrants during a traffic stop on on Gatesville Road. A woman with Franks consented to a body scan and was taken to the Bartholomew County jail where a scanner detected drugs, the report said. Jail staff assisted the woman in retrieving a bag of a white powdery substance from her body, believed by officers to be heroin, that weighed around 4 grams with packaging, the police report said.
While searching Franks’ car, officers reported finding multiple digital scales including one in a gym bag in his trunk. Several cut straws, with residue that police say is consistent with illegal drug use, were also found in Franks’ residence during a later search, the report said. During his interview with officers, Franks said the drugs and paraphernalia found were his.
Franks was taken to the Brown County jail at that time and was charged with possession of a narcotic drug exceeding 1 but less than 5 grams, and maintaining a common nuisance, both Level 6 felonies. He also was charged with possession of paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor.
In an interview with Henderson, Franks said he had a “hunch” the police were trying to “bust” him, but he insisted he wasn’t a “big time dealer,” the probable cause affidavit states.
Henderson wrote that the Facebook messages between Franks, the overdose victim and the other man asking for suboxone showed he did deal illegal drugs.
Franks denied selling the drugs to the victim.
“The messages with (the victim) and the timeline show that (the victim) did in fact buy drugs from Ryne Franks just before he overdosed and died,” Henderson wrote.
Police responded to five overdose calls between May 18 and June 9, and Henderson said in June that all five could be traced back to the same source of drugs. Two of those people died.
Last week Henderson said the other four overdoses remain under investigation.
Franks was booked into the Brown County jail on July 22. He is currently being held on a $100,000 bond.
According to online court documents, public defender Jacob Moore was appointed to represent him at his initial hearing July 23.
A jury trial was set for Nov. 4 at 8 a.m.
Moore did not have a comment for this story.
If convicted, Franks faces 10 to 30 years in prison on the Level 2 charge with an advisory sentence of 17 1/2 years. A conviction on a Level 5 felony carries a sentence of one to six years with an advisory sentence of three years.
Due to the string of recent overdoses locally and other information made available to his office, Adams said the decision was made to use the statute to file charges against Franks.
“Locally, we have had a recent and terrible string of overdoses resulting in deaths or near-deaths. In our current climate, law enforcement officers are facing nationwide scrutiny, and even ridicule, but many folks do not see what they do as first responders,” he said.
“I have witnessed them in the past two months bring two dead, overdosed individuals back to life. Because of their fast acts and ability to perform under pressure, those two individuals are alive today.”
He said his office sends condolences to the family of the victim who was unable to be revived in May by the time law enforcement officers arrived.
“As always, these charges are allegations against Mr. Franks. He is innocent until and unless he is proven guilty,” Adams said.
“We take the allegations very seriously and we believe there should be consequences if the allegations are proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The Brown County Prosecutor’s Office looks forward to presenting our case in court.”
