DRUG DEALER SENTENCED UNDER LEN BIAS LAW

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A drug dealer was sentenced to life in prison
for selling heroin blamed for an overdose death in the state's first
case under the federal Len Bias law.

Anibal Soler, 61, of Holyoke, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District
Court under the law named for the Boston Celtics basketball star.
Bias died of a cocaine overdose in 1986 after he was drafted as the
No. 1 pick that year by the Boston Celtics.

The federal law imposes a mandatory life sentence on drug dealers
whose sales result in death.

In July, Soler was found guilty of selling the heroin that caused the
death of Edward A. Thompson, 24, of Chicopee, last year.

Authorities said Thompson and two friends, Christopher R. Stevenson,
of Sunderland, and Thomas Dudek, of Chicopee, snorted heroin bought
from Soler. The two friends, who made the purchase, believed at first
it was cocaine, prosecutors said.

Thompson died the same night from an overdose. Stevenson was in a
coma for several days but survived. Dudek was hospitalized briefly.

Investigators claimed that the heroin was 72 percent pure. Street
heroin typically is 15 to 30 percent pure.

Soler was found guilty of five counts, including heroin distribution
resulting in death, heroin possession and distribution, drug dealing
within 1,000 feet of a school and conspiring to possess heroin.