'Big Brother' winner Adam Jasinski sentenced to four years in jail

Big Brother winner Adam Jasinski was sentenced to four years in federal prison for drug trafficking and tax evasion on Friday.


Jasinski had pleaded guilty to possession of oxycodone with attempt to distribute and failing to file a tax return for 2008 (the year he competed on Big Brother and won the ninth season's $500,000 grand prize) in U.S. District Court in Boston last fall and remained in custody since.

Jasinski's attorney had requested he receive a sentence of only about 10 months, the approximate amount of time he has already served in jail since his October 2009 arrest, The Associated Press reported. 

"I'm sick. I won $500,000 and I blew it all," Jasinski reportedly told U.S. District Court Judge William Young as he asked for leniency and cited his recent treatment for drug addiction and bipolar disorder.

"I apologize. I'm a mess... Give me a chance to get out and find out who I really am."


However, Young chose to sentence Jasinski to a term closer to the 4 1/5 year prison sentence federal prosecutors had recommended, according to The AP, citing a prior New York drug conviction the Big Brother champ had received five years probation for.

"You were drug trafficking, and you were drug trafficking until they caught you," said Young. "You got to a position where you thought that the rules didn't apply to you."

The Big Brother champ had faced up to 14 years in prison for the drug charge and a maximum of one year for the misdemeanor tax charge.

Jasinski, a 32-year-old from Delray Beach, FL, was arrested in October 2009 after he flew into Boston and attempted to sell 2,000 oxycodone pills to a Drug Enforcement Administration witness.

According to authorities, the witness -- who had made a prior buy of 2,000 oxycodone pills from Jasinski in February -- met Jasinski at Logan International Airport on October 17, 2009 and then drove to a North Reading, MA strip mall where Jasinski was arrested after he pulled the pills from a sock in his pants.


After his arrest, Jasinski allegedly told DEA agents he had used his Big Brother cash prize to bankroll his drug dealing and boasted he had been "obtaining thousands of pills of oxycodone" which he'd sold "to customers all along the East Coast."

Jasinski subsequently pleaded not guilty and challenged the DEA claims, saying he had no memory of making the statements after his arrest -- which his lawyer alleged involved "entrapment and outrageous government conduct."

He then remained in jail until December 2009, when he was sent to an Westboro, MA substance abuse treatment center after being released on $200,000 bond which was secured by his parents' home and three Florida properties.

Jasinski remained at the in-patient center for four months, when he moved to an out-patient treatment center near his parents' home in New Jersey.

Shortly thereafter, prosecutors also indicted Matt McDonald -- a Charlestown, MA resident who had been a close ally of Jasinski's on Big Brother's ninth season -- on a conspiracy to distribute oxycodone charge for allegedly being part of Jasinski's drug ring.


McDonald pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone earlier this month and is currently in jail awaiting his own sentencing.






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