McKees Rocks rehab founder gets 10 years for selling heroin

David Francis struggled with drug addiction his whole life, using heroin for the first time at age 9.

He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, and held a variety of jobs, including as a commercial boat captain and semi-pro baseball player.

Following several years of sobriety, in January 2004, Francis opened Next Step Foundation Inc., a three-quarter house drug rehabilitation center in McKees Rocks, providing treatment to those addicted and in trouble.

Over eight years, Francis estimated he participated in 5,000 drug interventions, and his facility at its peak housed 187 residents, according to his attorney.

But, at 3:30 a.m. June 3, 2012, attorney Casey White wrote in a sentencing memorandum, Francis did a room sweep at Next Step and found heroin.

Instead of flushing it like he normally would do, White wrote, Francis took it home and snorted it.

“Within a month, Mr. Francis surrendered all of his contacts, closed Next Step and dissolved the nonprofit organization through the state,” White wrote.

Over the next five years, Francis ran a large-scale heroin distribution ring, while at the same time preparing dozens of fraudulent tax returns through a business, All Personal Matters, to fund it, according to federal prosecutors

In July, Francis, 69, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti to five counts of aiding or assisting in the preparation of filing false income tax returns and one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin.

On Wednesday, he was ordered as part of a plea agreement to serve 10 years in prison.

In the government’s sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tonya Sulia Goodman wrote that it is “highly unusual” to uncover both a heroin trafficking and significant white-collar tax fraud scheme in one case.

“The defendant used his purported drug rehabilitation center – Next Step Recovery – not only to peddle fentanyl, heroin and other drugs to addicts who had turned to him for help, but also as a base of operations for his scheme to cheat the IRS out of millions of tax dollars,” she wrote.

His drug sales, the prosecutor continued, caused three clients at Next Step to overdose and nearly die.

When Francis’ co-defendant, William Rosario, was arrested on drug charges in state court, the prosecutor wrote, Francis fooled the judge there into releasing Rosario into Francis’ sham drug rehabilitation center. Over the course of the fraud, Francis cost the IRS $1.7 million.

Just before his arrest in October 2017, White wrote, his client, who has five sons, was using at least 50 bags of heroin each day.

Since his incarceration at the Allegheny County Jail, Francis has become a trustee on the veteran’s pod and spent much of his time painting murals on the walls, White wrote.

He has never gotten a misconduct and graduated from a substance abuse treatment program and participated in a veteran’s program there.