Sailor charged in fentanyl overdose death aboard USS Abraham Lincoln

A U.S. Navy sailor has been charged in federal court with distributing fentanyl that led to the overdose death of a fellow sailor stationed aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln in 2023, according to court documents.

Bailey Szramowski is accused of knowingly distributing Percocet pills tainted with fentanyl to sailors, resulting in at least two overdoses in 2023, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California.

On Jan. 3, 2023, a sailor stationed aboard the Lincoln, identified as “A.N.” in court documents, died after overdosing while on leave while staying with family in San Leandro, California.

Local law enforcement officials found evidence of drug use at the scene, and a toxicology report later confirmed A.N.’s cause of death as fentanyl intoxication.

Ten days after A.N.’s death, another sailor stationed aboard the Lincoln was hospitalized after an apparent overdose, which he survived.

That sailor, identified as “C.L.,” then agreed to cooperate in a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into drug distribution activities aboard the Lincoln and A.N.’s death, according to the complaint.

C.L. told investigators that A.N. and Szramowski had been selling Percocet pills — which court documents state were likely counterfeit — to other sailors, including himself, for about a year, alleging Szramowski sold the pills aboard the carrier during its 2022 deployment and after the ship returned to San Diego, California.

According to C.L., Szramowski purchased the pills via mail, received them at a P.O. box in Coronado, California, and then charged sailors for the pills via the mobile payment app CashApp.

Szramowski is also accused of attempting to cover up his alleged involvement in A.N.’s death, directing A.N.’s family to delete text messages between himself and A.N. on A.N.’s phone after his death, but they declined to, according to the complaint.

Szramowski allegedly told A.N.’s family members that “he ‘might go down for murder’ or it would ‘ruin his future’ or words to that effect if the police found the messages,” the complaint states.

Information regarding Szramowski’s service record and personal details, including whether he was facing any Uniform Code of Military Justice charges over the allegations, was not immediately available at press time.

Details about Szramowski’s civilian legal defense were not immediately available.