Hempfield man sentenced in 2020 fatal overdose case

A Hempfield man was sentenced Tuesday to serve four to eight years in a state prison for selling drugs used in a 2020 fatal overdose of a friend.

Rick Paul Petros, 54, was given credit for time served in jail since his arrest in May 2021.

He pleaded no contest in March to drug delivery resulting in death and guilty to drug possession, but continued to question whether the drugs were to blame for the August 2020 death of Eugene S. Matyonosky, 48, of New Alexandria. Matyonosky was found unresponsive in his mother’s Hempfield Towers apartment building and died the next day at a hospital.

According to court records, police linked Petros to the fentanyl-laced heroin that caused Matyonosky’s death through phone records and surveillance video that depicted the men together in Petros’ truck before the overdose.

An autopsy showed that Matyonosky died from an overdose of heroin and fentanyl, police said. He is survived by two daughters and five grandchildren, according to his obituary.

Authorities in Westmoreland County have filed 71 drug delivery resulting in death cases between 2017 and 2021, the fourth highest number in the state, according to statistics released by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.