James Tunstall gets 30 years in prison in overdose death of Sergio Alvarez, prosecutors say

A Nassau County drug dealer was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for his role in the 2018 overdose death of a man he had met at a rehab program, federal prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Joan Azrack handed down the sentence to James Tunstall, 48, for distributing heroin that resulted in the death of Sergio Niko Alvarez, 24, of Jericho. He faced life in prison after a jury found him guilty in February, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said.

“It is our hope that today’s sentence serves both as a deterrent to those peddling dangerous narcotics in our communities and as a measure of comfort to the victim’s family, that callous disregard for human life will never be accepted,” Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

Prosecutors describe Tunstall of Freeport and Westbury as a drug dealer who regularly faked an opioid addiction and was able to participate in court-mandated rehabilitation, avoiding incarceration.

Once he was at the rehabilitation centers, prosecutors said, he met new clients, including Alvarez and co-defendant Jay Tenem.

Tenem delivered the fatal heroin dose from Tunstall to Alvarez on Oct. 28, 2018. Tenem then brought Tunstall the cash payment for the heroin from Alvarez, the statement said. The next morning, Alvarez was found dead in his bedroom by his mother, Monique Sellis.

Sellis said her son’s opioid addiction has roots in a baseball injury from his teenage years. Still, he had graduated from Jericho High School and received an academic scholarship to the University of Tampa.

At some point, he became involved with substances such as Xanax and had several driving while intoxicated arrests. After he was suspended from college for fighting, he didn’t go back because of his addiction, Newsday reported. As he made his way in and out of criminal court and rehab, Sellis, said, “he was really trying.”

Tenem pleaded guilty in 2019 to distribution of a controlled substance causing death. He is expected to be sentenced in September.

In 2021, Tunstall pleaded guilty in a separate case to participating in a conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine and was sentenced to 20 years in prison the following year.

Tunstall will serve his two sentences concurrently, prosecutors said in the statement.

With Matthew Chayes

Correction: In an earlier version of this story, the person serving two concurrent sentences was misidentified. He is James Tunstall.

By Tiffany Cusaac-Smith

tiffany.cusaac-smith@newsday.com@T_Cusaac

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith is a general assignment reporter for Newsday. She previously worked at USA TODAY and is an alum of Howard University.