photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Brandon Lawrence Galloway

A man who took a plea deal more than a year ago in connection with a drug death but failed to appear for his original sentencing date received probation on Friday in Douglas County District Court.

Brandon Lawrence Galloway, 34, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, was originally charged in April 2021 with distribution of a controlled substance causing death, but he pleaded no contest to a lower-level felony, possession of heroin, on June 22, 2021. After Galloway was convicted, he was given a $2,500 own-recognizance bond, but he failed to appear for his sentencing in November of 2021. Then, on July 18, 2022, he was taken into custody by Douglas County sheriff’s deputies, according to the Douglas County Jail booking log.

On Friday, Judge Stacey Donovan sentenced Galloway to 17 months in prison and then suspended the sentence to 12 months of probation.

The charges against Galloway stem from an incident that occurred in September 2019. Charging documents allege that Galloway distributed a substance that resulted in death, and the primary witness on the document was Stacey D. Martin.

Martin died on Sept. 8, 2019, and her autopsy was performed two days later by Alan Martinez of the Douglas County Coroner’s Office.

According to the autopsy report, Martin was “a 32-year-old female who was reportedly homeless and had a history of chronic ethanol abuse.” The report said she and her boyfriend supposedly used heroin at a friend’s apartment on Sept. 7, 2019, and she was found unresponsive at around midnight that night. Attempts to revive her were unsuccessful.

The toxicology report showed that Martin had a number of substances in her blood at the time of her death, including fentanyl, methamphetamine, Xanax, codeine, morphine, oxycodone, tramadol and alcohol.

“The cause of death is multiple drug and ethanol intoxication,” Martinez wrote in the report.

According to the Lawrence Police Department’s call logs, the incident took place in the 500 block of Stoneridge Drive.

Galloway was first arrested on May 17, 2021, and was held on a $50,000 cash or surety bond. His defense attorney, Cooper Overstreet, then negotiated the plea agreement with Senior Assistant District Attorney David Greenwald, reducing Galloway’s charge from a level-one person felony to a level-five drug felony. According to state sentencing guidelines, if Galloway had been convicted of his original, more severe charge, he would have faced a minimum of more than 16 years in prison.

Galloway is also facing charges in Jackson County, Missouri. According to Jackson County court records, he has five pending cases, all of which are for charges of traffic infractions, drug possession or drug paraphernalia. He was returned to the Douglas County Jail after his sentencing in Douglas County, and Donovan said he would be transferred to Jackson County within 10 days.

Donovan said that if Galloway were convicted of crimes in Missouri, his sentence in Douglas County would be consecutive to any sentences for those crimes.

“You have a lot of cases you have to deal with,” Donovan said.