Navy Sailor ARRESTED – Drug Ring Exposed On Warship

Aircraft carrier at sea with crew lining the deck — Photo: viper-zero / Shutterstock

A married Navy couple sold fentanyl-laced fake pain pills to their own shipmates aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and one sailor died.

Story Snapshot

Former sailors Bailey Szramowski and Johnnese Poomaihealani pleaded guilty in federal court to selling counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.
The pills went to active-duty crew members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, based in San Diego, including during deployments.
One sailor died from the drugs and another was hospitalized after an overdose.
The pair face sentencing later this year on federal drug distribution charges.

Guilty Pleas Confirm Drug Ring Aboard the Carrier

Federal prosecutors say Szramowski, 29, and Poomaihealani, 25, admitted to selling fake oxycodone pills packed with fentanyl to fellow sailors stationed in San Diego. The Justice Department confirmed the sales happened while the ship was deployed, meaning sailors bought poison from crewmates while stuck at sea with no way out. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Court records show the scheme was not a one-time mistake. Prosecutors say Szramowski kept selling the counterfeit pills even after one sailor had already died from ingesting one, a detail that turns this from a drug case into a story about willful disregard for human life inside a warship’s crew.

A Death, a Hospitalization, and a Cover-Up Attempt

The overdose happened in 2023 aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered supercarrier that serves as one of the Navy’s most visible symbols of military strength. One crew member died after taking a counterfeit Percocet pill contaminated with fentanyl, and a second sailor was hospitalized in a separate incident tied to the same supply chain. Investigators later found that Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents had picked up warning signs months before the fatal overdose occurred.

Poomaihealani served aboard the Lincoln from October 2020 to October 2022, according to Navy service records, placing her inside the ship’s crew during the period prosecutors say the drug sales took place. Her husband faces an additional charge of distribution resulting in death, a more serious count that carries the potential for a significantly longer prison sentence than the conspiracy charge alone.

Why Fake Pills Turned Deadly So Fast

This case did not happen in a vacuum. Counterfeit prescription pills have become one of the most common ways fentanyl reaches unsuspecting buyers across the country. Drug Enforcement Administration lab testing found that six out of ten fake pills seized in recent years contained a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, often without the buyer having any idea.

Researchers studying counterfeit oxycodone found that 99.3 percent of fake pills tested in one 2022 sample contained fentanyl, and most also contained a related illicit analog. A pill made to look identical to a doctor-prescribed painkiller can now carry a fatal dose of a drug the buyer never asked for and never sees coming.

The military has not been spared. Defense Department data given to Congress showed fentanyl was involved in 88 percent of service member overdose deaths in 2021, up sharply from just 36 percent five years earlier. Sailors deployed at sea, isolated from normal support networks and under constant stress, are exactly the population most vulnerable to a counterfeit pill crisis fueled by cartels manufacturing fakes to look just like the real thing.

Accountability Aboard America’s Warships

A supercarrier like the Abraham Lincoln carries thousands of young sailors, many far from home for months at a time. When two of their own turn that isolation into a market for poison, the damage goes beyond one death. It strikes at trust between shipmates who are supposed to watch each other’s backs, not sell each other fentanyl disguised as painkillers.

The Navy and federal prosecutors deserve credit for pursuing this case to a guilty plea rather than letting it fade into a routine drug statistic. Sentencing later this year will determine how much accountability these two former sailors actually face for conduct that took at least one life and endangered many more aboard a vessel meant to project American strength, not host a fentanyl pipeline.

Fentanyl on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

A Navy couple dealt drugs to their own crewmates. One sailor died.

Bailey Szramowski and his wife sold fake Percocet from 2022, never mentioning the fentanyl.

They kept selling after the first death. When a second sailor overdosed and… https://t.co/tFBBzMZsfF pic.twitter.com/lP9446C2ci

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) September 18, 2026

The broader lesson extends well past this single ship. As counterfeit pills flood communities nationwide, service members are not immune, and the military’s chain of command bears real responsibility for catching these networks before they cost another young sailor’s life.