Days before the election, a judge on Tuesday sentenced a Gainesville man to five years in prison for selling drugs that led to a fatal overdose by the adult son of the Democratic nominee in the sheriff’s race.
Under a plea deal, Jose "Albey" Alberto Coronel, 46, was sentenced on five felony drug possession and trafficking charges in the August 2023 death of Chad Scott Jr., 29.
Coronel has spent 425 days in jail awaiting the outcome of his criminal case, so the judge said that time will be subtracted from his prison sentence. The judge also sentenced him to two years’ probation after his release from prison.
In the courtroom, Coronel made no statements about his guilt but asked Circuit Judge David Kreider some procedural questions. Coronel ran a graphics design studio downtown and was a producer at Gainesville Fashion Week at the height of its popularity.
Scott’s family was not present at Tuesday’s plea hearing, which took place exactly one week before Election Day when candidates are at their busiest. There hasn’t been a Republican elected sheriff in Alachua County – one of Florida’s most reliably Democratic strongholds – in two decades. Chad Scott had launched his campaign to become sheriff months before his son’s overdose.
Deputies identified Coronel as the drug dealer in the case based on WhatsApp messages recovered from the dead man’s phone, which Scott – who at the time was a top official in the sheriff’s office – gave deputies permission to search. Scott was listed as a possible witness for the prosecution if the case had gone to trial.
When deputies arrested Coronel less than five hours later, Coronel suffered a bleeding head wound that was never mentioned in the official arrest report filed in the case. The sheriff’s office later said Coronel sustained the head injury when he tried to slam the door on the arresting officers, who pushed back on the door, slamming it back into the man’s forehead.
Coronel, in an interview from the jail, disputed that, saying sheriff’s officials had slammed open the door of his home when they arrived to arrest him, striking Coronel as it opened and causing him to fall and hit his head.
None of the sheriff’s employees involved in the arrest were wearing body cameras because two were undercover detectives and the third worked in a narcotics unit, the sheriff’s office said.
The judge did not mention or discuss Coronel’s head injury during Tuesday’s sentencing.
Chad Scott has distanced his son’s death from his campaign even as he included drug enforcement as one of his platforms.
Pristine Thai contributed reporting.