A former Texas Tech University professor who manufactured and distributed fentanyl — including a branded mixture known as “pink flamingo” — has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould announced. Daniel Taylor, 51, pleaded guilty on July 1 to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl, and U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix imposed the 480-month sentence.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Northern District of Texas
Times Now World, reporting on the same sentencing, said Taylor previously taught supply chain management at the university's Rawls College of Business and that the sentencing was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office on October 23, following an investigation that found he was manufacturing and distributing illicit substances while employed as an academic.
Source: Times Now World
“Ghost” and “pink flamingo”
According to court documents cited by the Justice Department, Taylor was an assistant professor of supply chain management at Texas Tech's Rawls College of Business when he began distributing fentanyl powder throughout the Lubbock area. He produced two fentanyl products: a potent white powder known as “ghost,” and “pink flamingo,” a fentanyl–bromazolam mixture that he dyed pink and packaged with flamingo-branded stickers and envelopes.
Law enforcement began investigating Taylor in 2025. In January, agents observed Taylor meet with one of his distributors in a convenience-store parking lot shortly before a passenger in the same vehicle overdosed and required emergency hospitalization, the department said. During subsequent operations, agents executed search warrants and recovered fentanyl, bromazolam, methamphetamine, cocaine base, ketamine and MDMA. They also found a heat-sealing and packaging station, pink envelopes, flamingo stickers, and a handwritten recipe outlining the formula for “pink flamingo.”
What prosecutors said
Court documents show that Taylor provided fentanyl to multiple women in exchange for sex, the Justice Department said. Several women overdosed after consuming Taylor's fentanyl products, including at least one who required multiple doses of Narcan administered in Taylor's home. Messages obtained from Taylor's phone showed him instructing associates to move drug discussions to encrypted applications and delete messages, and Taylor referred to the women collectively as his “flamingos,” according to the department.
“Daniel Taylor earned every year of his 40-year sentence,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould. “Taylor targeted and preyed on vulnerable women, enlisted some of them to help his drug supply chain, branded his poison as if it were a product sold off a shelf and showed a shocking disregard for human life.” DEA Special Agent in Charge Joseph B. Tucker said Taylor “exploited his position of trust and education to engage in the distribution of one of the deadliest drugs threatening our communities.”
Taylor is a previously federally convicted felon and had earlier been court-martialed after using fraudulent documents and attempting to fake his own death, the department said. The investigation was a joint operation of the Texas Anti-Gang Center and the Caprock Hi-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, made up of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office and the Lubbock Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Rancourt prosecuted the case.