Army recruit Tyson Richardson was home for the holidays in Oregon and out with friends looking to have some fun.
Several days before he was set to resume boot camp in Georgia, he took some multi-colored pills laced with fentanyl.
While others were partying in another room at a Lake Oswego apartment, Richardson lay unconscious.
When they discovered him, they put Richardson in a shower, thinking he had too much to drink. The 19-year-old was declared dead at the scene early on Dec. 30, 2022. An autopsy found he died of fentanyl toxicity.
“Seeing my son in his casket, dressed in his military uniform, was pure torment,” his father, Clifford Richardson, told a judge Wednesday at the sentencing of the man who supplied the fatal pills.
“The uniform, which should have been the symbol of his dreams and aspirations, now felt like a cruel joke,” he said.
Tyson Richardson was one of 1,383 people who died from a drug overdose in 2022 in Oregon. The number increased in 2023, with the overdose deaths of 1,833 people, setting a record in the state. The state hasn’t released the statistics for 2024.
The drug seller, Michael D. Parris, now 23, pleaded guilty to distribution of fentanyl.
The prosecutor recommended a nearly six-year sentence for Parris and the defense lawyer recommended less than three years. The father urged a sentence of at least 10 years.
“Tyson’s life mattered. His future mattered,” said Clifford Richardson, 48. A shorter sentence, he said, “falls short of recognizing that truth.”
U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman said no sentence could assuage the father’s loss.
“Whatever number I picked, there’s no closure,” Mosman said. “Nothing feels different, life isn’t better the next day.”
‘FULL OF HEART’
Tyson Richardson was born in Oregon City and was an avid baseball player, his father said.
Coaching his son was “one of the greatest joys” of his life, Clifford Richardson said. He recalled the look of “pure joy” on Tyson’s face when he crossed home plate after hitting a grand slam during a 2018 state championship.
He told the judge about the time his son tried to catch a pop fly in another game and the ball hit him squarely on the nose when the sun blocked his view.
“He refused to leave the field. He wanted to keep playing,” Clifford Richardson recalled. After a trip to urgent care, the boy returned to the field — “unyielding, determined and full of heart,” his father said.
Tyson Richardson attended Gladstone High School but didn’t finish and received his high equivalency diploma in 2022, his father said.
Inspired by an uncle, he decided to join the Army and had dreams of serving as a cavalry scout to specialize in reconnaissance and gathering information about enemy positions, weapons and activity.
“He wanted to serve his country, to be part of something greater than himself,” Clifford Richardson said.
‘HELLA HARSH’
A police investigation revealed Tyson Richardson bought 12 multi-colored pills from Parris the day before he died for $30 to $40.
They set up the drug buy via Snapchat. Tyson Richardson messaged someone who went by “PaySosa16,” according to investigators.
The two agreed to meet up to do a deal for a “g of snow,” short for gram of cocaine, and “$100 worth of blues,” counterfeit oxycodone pills, according to court records.
The exchange took place in a Fred Meyer parking lot.
Investigators learned that the Snapchat account was associated with a phone number used in online ads for sex trafficking and registered to Parris.
They arrested Parris about a month later, on Jan. 31, 2023, when he went to a Clackamas County spot to set up a meeting between a woman in his car and a prospective sex customer who turned out to be an undercover officer, police said.
Investigators seized a loaded 9mm gun with an extended magazine from the car and a clear plastic bag containing about 100 fentanyl pills.
Parris initially said he didn’t know Tyson Richardson, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Cassady Adams.
When given a description of the 19-year-old, Parris said he remembered Tyson Richardson but didn’t recall selling him drugs, attributing that to limited memory from his own drug use.
Parris admitted having other drug customers and said he had received some rainbow-colored fentanyl pills from his source that were poorly pressed, similar to the six pills found in a plastic bag in Tyson Richardson’s wallet, according to Adams.
Parris told police he had an argument with his pill supplier because other customers had complained that the pills “were hella harsh,” Adams said.
‘OPENED MY EYES’
Adams argued for a sentence of five years and 11 months for Parris, saying he wasn’t a cartel member or a dispatcher for a cartel.
Parris certainly knew he was selling “a poison,” but she noted Parris’ own history of addiction and his early resolution of the case.
“This is certainly a tragedy,” Adams said, and told Richardson’s family members that she was deeply sorry for their loss.
Defense lawyer Conor Huseby said Parris was homeless at the time he sold the pills to Tyson Richardson. He urged a sentence of two years and nine months.
Parris had become a daily fentanyl user after breaking his pelvis and vertebrae in a 2021 car accident, Huseby said. He began living with other fentanyl users after getting out of the hospital and sold drugs to support his habit, the lawyer said.
He wasn’t a “profit-driven dealer,” Huseby said.
Parris’ childhood also contributed to his addiction — he was raised by parents who used drugs in front of him and he began using marijuana and alcohol at age 10, Huseby said.
Parris then addressed the Richardson family, reading from a written statement.
“Please allow me to apologize for my weakness and inability to control the addiction that left me and so many others in an irrational state of existence,” he said. “That irrational mind frame has no sense of right or wrong, no moral compass and no sense of compassion for anything besides the addiction.”
Parris told the judge that going to jail on other state charges he faced after Tyson Richardson’s death, and while awaiting sentencing in the federal case saved his life and “opened my eyes.” He was convicted last year of driving while suspended and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
“From the bottom of my heart I most sincerely apologize for facilitating the drugs that took Tyson away from you all,” he told Richardson’s family and friends. Tyler Richardson’s father, stepmother and about 20 family friends attended the sentencing.
‘TYSON DOES MATTER’
The judge said he appreciated Clifford Richardson addressing the court.
What he must try to do, Mosman told the father, is to try to rank the cases before him to determine where they fit along a spectrum of moral culpability.
He also can only sentence someone for the crime they’ve pleaded guilty to and not for a more serious offense.
Mosman said he had to consider Parris’ harsh upbringing and that Parris was a “low-level addict selling drugs to feed his habit” and not a “callous ... psychopathic criminal.”
“Tyson does matter to the criminal justice system and so does the victim’s family,” Mosman said. “But the criminal justice system is incapable of providing what the victim’s family most needs.”
He adopted the prosecutor’s recommended sentence of five years and 11 months.
At that, Clifford Richardson, wearing a black T-shirt reading “Fentanyl is TERRORISM,” stood up and walked out of the courtroom.
He left before the judge was done.
— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, or on LinkedIn.
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