Dargan

HOLLIDAYSBURG — A city man was sentenced to almost 52 years to 105 years in Blair County Court on Tuesday for delivering the drugs that resulted in the 2021 overdose death of 38-year-old Colleen Buck.

Donald “The Rev” Delanor Dargan, 64, was convicted on 10 felony counts, including drug delivery resulting in death, human trafficking and rape following a four-day jury trial in late November.

The jury acquitted Dargan of single felony counts of conspiracy to commit corrupt organizations and possession with intent to deliver drugs to Buck.

While Dargan continued to protest his conviction and impending sentence, Buck’s mother made sure he knew what sentence she wished for him.

“You are a waste of space and I hope you die a horrible, painful death in prison,” she wrote in a victim impact statement read aloud to the court.

She called Dargan a “psychopath” and asked him: “Why did you purposefully take my daughter’s life?”

Dargan is the last member of a human-trafficking ring to be sentenced, ending a yearslong legal battle that began with a police investigation by Altoona officers in December 2020.

The ring — which also included Sean Lamont Atkins, 53, Derrick Anthony McNeal, 56, Tony Donnell Ross, 49, and Quincy James Wilson, 48 — would provide drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine to women suffering from addiction in order to get them “strung out.” The men would then cut off the women from their drug supply and, once the women were desperate, would force them to prostitute themselves in order to obtain their fix.

During Dargan’s sentencing hearing, President Judge Wade A. Kagarise, who also presided over Dargan’s trial, ordered Dargan to pay about $4,000 for the cost of prosecution and $1,800 in fines.

While an evaluation was done by the state Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks and Dargan agreed there was no need to hold a hearing as Dargan wasn’t found to be a sexually violent predator.

First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith told Kagarise that due to Dargan’s felony rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse convictions, he was still a lifetime Megan’s Law registrant despite not being a sexually violent predator.

Prior to handing down Dargan’s sentence, Kagarise heard additional victim impact statements.

The first was written by a victim of Dargan’s trafficking, who said “a man of God would never do what you did.”

“It took me getting sober to understand what happened to me,” she wrote.

Altoona Detective Sgt. Eric Heuston also addressed the court, telling Kagarise that if Dargan were “a religious man, he should have been a shepherd to a better life.”

He said Dargan looked down on heroin users, but used the drug to his advantage, saying it was no different to date rape.

“(Dargan) has a criminal history spanning 38 pages,” Heuston said. “He’s had over 60 years to change his behavior, but he’s only gotten more violent.”

In making the District Attorney Office’s sentencing recommendation, Smith asked Kagarise to have

Dargan’s sentences in eight of his felony counts run consecutively to each other and concurrently with the felony drug delivery resulting in death sentence due to the inconsistent verdict.

The felony possession of a firearm prohibited charge, while severed from the other charges and tried by a separate jury, was included in the day’s sentencing as Dargan was found guilty. The sentence on that charge ran concurrently to the other nine felonies.

“This drug delivery resulting in death was one of the more egregious we’ve seen in this county,” Smith said. “Dargan prostituted (Buck) in life and abandoned her in death.”

Smith said Dargan’s sentence needed to reflect how “severe the human trafficking and rape charges were in this case,” because “you don’t need a gun if you have a needle.”

When given the opportunity to speak, Dargan, who represented himself throughout the trial and sentencing, opted to attack the prosecution and defend himself rather than providing his own sentencing recommendation.

Dargan told Kagarise that if the Heuston and the District Attorney’s Office “believed what they were saying, they wouldn’t have lost all the evidence” for 13 months.

He also said his right to a speedy trial had been violated, as he was brought to trial after about 1,419 days rather than 365.

Online court documents state that many of the delays in Dargan’s case going to trial were caused by Dargan changing lawyers once before deciding to represent himself and filing about six pre-trial motions, which required responses from the District Attorney’s Office and rulings from Kagarise.

The documents state that a hearing was continued once by the District Attorney’s Office.

Dargan also accused Heuston of lying on the witness stand, before saying he never killed or raped anyone.

“This is a miscarriage of justice, that’s all I can say,” Dargan said.

As for the 38-page criminal history mentioned by Heuston, Dargan told Kagarise that he “went on a crime spree” and “made a mistake.”

Dargan then apologized to Buck’s family.

Kagarise took a 10-minute recess to go over everything presented before sentencing Dargan to 621 months to 1,254 months in a state correctional institute, to be followed by 36 months of re-entry.

Following the sentencing, Smith said the DA’s Office was “pleased” with Kagarise’s decision as it took into account the damage Dargan’s actions did to the victims and the community.

She then applauded the victims in the case, saying there was “so much you don’t see” behind the scenes of a trial.

“The courage of these women should not be understated,” Smith said.

Heuston also “did an outstanding job,” Smith said, adding that the community should be proud to have him and the Altoona Police Department keeping them safe.

Dargan will be back in Blair County court for a third criminal jury trial involving four drug cases that were joined for prosecution.

Court-appointed defense attorney Christopher Jancula, who last represented Dargan during his firearms case and acted as standby counsel for his most recent trial, will again act as Dargan’s attorney.

District Attorney Pete Weeks told Kagarise during a previous hearing that Dargan rejected an offer of pleading guilty in the cases for a sentence that would run concurrent to the sentence handed down in Buck’s case.

While the offer was for concurrency, Weeks said it wasn’t a coterminous offer, which means that, if Dargan were to be found guilty and sentenced after the next trial, his sentences would run at the same time but wouldn’t necessarily end at the same time if one sentence were longer than the other.

Dargan also opted for another trial by jury rather than a trial by court, Weeks said.

Across his four remaining cases, Dargan is facing four felony counts of possession with intent to deliver, two felony counts of conspiracy to commit possession with intent to deliver, three felony counts of criminal use of a communication facility and four misdemeanor counts of possession of a controlled substance.

Dargan has been incarcerated at the Blair County Prison since Jan. 3, 2022.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.