A Montgomery County first-grade teacher who prosecutors say turned drug dealing into part of her workday has been sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison after pills she sold, allegedly laced with fentanyl, led to a man’s death. Authorities say some of those sales happened during school hours and even outside the elementary school where she taught.
Sarah Katherine Magid, 36, of Burtonsville, received the sentence this week, according to WMAR2. The outlet reports that a federal judge also ordered her to pay $25,090 toward the victim’s burial costs.
What prosecutors say
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, pills seized in the case were pressed to look like oxycodone hydrochloride but actually contained fentanyl. The Washington, D.C., Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the victim’s cause of death was fentanyl toxicity.
Prosecutors said court papers showed investigators tied Magid to the victim through forensic analysis of text messages. Those filings also describe a complaint from July 2024, when Magid allegedly left her classroom to sell drugs to people outside the school.
Arrest and school response
Montgomery County police said officers and DEA agents executed a search and seizure warrant at Magid’s Burtonsville home in August 2024 and arrested her without incident, according to a news release from the Montgomery County Department of Police.
Montgomery County Public Schools placed Magid on leave from Dr. Charles R. Drew Elementary School, a move that local reporting confirmed through court records and district statements, as reported by The Washington Post.
Sentence and restitution
The federal judge imposed both the prison term and the burial restitution as part of the sentence, according to WMAR2. The outlet reports that prosecutors leaned on the text-message evidence and related court filings when pushing for a federal prison term.
Legal context
Magid was federally charged with distributing fentanyl that resulted in serious bodily injury and death, an offense that, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, carries a statutory mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life. The Justice Department noted that actual sentences often fall below statutory maximums after judges weigh the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other legal factors.
Local context
The prosecution is unfolding amid a wider enforcement push against fentanyl in Maryland. Local reporting has highlighted the creation of a Maryland Fatal Fentanyl Overdose Task Force designed to coordinate investigations and prosecutions across agencies. Montgomery County recorded at least 82 overdose deaths in 2025, according to Montgomery Community Media, reinforcing officials’ warnings about counterfeit pills and fentanyl in the region.
Court records and additional filings are expected to provide more detail on how prosecutors built the case and how the judge arrived at the sentence. For now, federal authorities say the prosecution is part of broader efforts to clamp down on deadly counterfeit-pill sales in the Washington metropolitan area.
