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California Man Sentenced to 42 Months for Fentanyl Trafficking in Virginia
A 26-year-old California man, Jorge Efrain Perez, has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for conspiring to supply fentanyl linked to teenage overdoses in Wise County, Virginia.
According to court documents, between November 2020 and June 2022, Perez, along with Alexander Ortiz and Destiny Raeann Perez, supplied thousands of pressed pills containing fentanyl to multiple drug dealers in Southwest Virginia.
Every few weeks, Paul Mason Perkins and Aaron Stidham used social media platforms to buy thousands of fentanyl-laced pills from Ortiz. Perez and his co-conspirator Destiny Perez assisted Ortiz by mailing the illicit packages from California to Big Stone Gap and Appalachia, Virginia.
The pair then re-sold the deadly pills to other individuals throughout Wise County, including multiple sales to co-conspirators Austin Jeremiah Lane and Cheyenne Cassie Carico.
On November 24, 2021, Lane and Carico sold pills to a 17-year-old female who subsequently overdosed and was hospitalized later that night after ingesting those pills. An 18-year-old male was also hospitalized due to a drug overdose on the same night.
Further investigation revealed that pills from both overdoses were linked to Ortiz and had been shipped to Virginia by Perez. Ortiz was previously sentenced to 17 years in prison for his role in the conspiracy, while Destiny Perez was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and local law enforcement agencies in California. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lena L. Busscher prosecuted the case.
Key Facts
- State: Virginia
- Category: Drug Trafficking
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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