The Port Townsend man convicted in the drug overdose death of a local musician last August has been sentenced to 44 months in prison for drug trafficking and illegal firearms possession charges.

Adam Michael Kelly, 38, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.

Kelly has been in federal custody since he was given a 68-month prison term last August in Jefferson County Superior Court for the death of Jarrod Bramson. Authorities said Kelly gave drugs to Bramson and then abandoned him in a car in the parking lot of Jefferson Healthcare after Bramson suffered an overdose.

Bramson, 43, was discovered by Jefferson Health Care Medical Center personnel at the hospital in his vehicle March 27, 2019.

After his arrest, Kelly was charged in April 2019 with six counts of sale, delivery or possession with intent to sell or deliver a “legend drug” in a school zone.

Kelly had earlier been scheduled to be sentenced on the federal charges in early November, but that hearing was postponed.

At the sentencing hearing Jan. 14, U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle noted the letters he had received from the Port Townsend community mourning Bramson’s death. 

Settle said Kelly would have to “live with” the fact that he had likely played a role in the tragic death of the overdose victim “for the rest of [Kelly’s] life.”

Kelly will serve his federal sentence of 44 months at the same time he is in prison for his state conviction.

According to Kelly’s plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Kelly later called the hospital after he left Bramson in the parking lot outside the emergency room entrance and asked staff to check on Bramson.

Bramson, who had no pulse when he was found by hospital staff, died within 20 minutes. Police traced the phone call to Kelly’s home, and when interviewed by police, he admitted that Bramson had used drugs in his home but became unresponsive.

Police later searched Kelly’s home and found what authorities called a sophisticated drug lab in the basement that had pill presses, lab equipment, vent hoods, and more than 75 pounds of controlled substances, primarily steroids. Records seized in Kelly’s lab detailed a lucrative business Kelly had set up to sell and ship illegal steroids across the country.

Police also found a wide variety of firearms, silencers, and tactical gear in Kelly’s home.

In the lab, police recovered a .40-caliber Glock handgun that was both loaded and fitted with a silencer. Six guns were found in Kelly’s bedroom, including two Glock handguns, a Bersa .22-caliber handgun, a Winchester shotgun, a Remington 700 rifle, and a Bushmaster AR-15 assault weapon. A second silencer was found in the bedroom, and police seized a variety of ammunition, as well as a tactical vest. 

Kelly had heroin and methamphetamine in his possession when he was arrested, and as an admitted drug user, it is illegal for him to possess firearms.