Man pleads guilty to distributing fentanyl that led to Bellingham boy’s overdose death
A 22-year-old Mount Vernon man pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl in Whatcom and Skagit counties that led to two overdoses, including the death of a Bellingham 17-year-old in 2019.
Jiovanni Nunez is the second person to plead guilty to charges in U.S. District Court in Seattle for distributing counterfeit oxycodone pills tainted with fentanyl, joining co-conspirator Rosaliana Lopez-Rodriguez, 23, of Mount Vernon. Both have been in custody since their arrest in late 2019.
Nunez, who will be sentenced by Chief Judge Ricardo S. Martinez on Oct. 1, faces a prison term of between five and 40 years after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle, according to a U.S. Department of Justice release on his plea, while Lopez-Rodriguez is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 19.
Nunez supplied Lopez-Martinez with the tainted pills, and she then distributed them in Whatcom and Skagit counties, according to the release.
According to court records in the case, the Bellingham boy was found unresponsive on Nov. 9, 2019, and, despite emergency responders’ efforts to resuscitate him, he died. His cause of death was determined to be a fentanyl overdose.
Investigators found a whole and a partial pill near the victim, the release states, and the pills were designed to look like oxycodone 30-milligram pills, with an “M” and “30” stamped on them. But the pills were tainted with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is 50- to 100-times more potent than morphine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Similar pills had been linked to other overdoses and deaths in the Puget Sound region, according to the release, including a 17-year-old friend of the Bellingham victim, who nearly died after smoking one of the pills Nov. 2, 2019.
Lopez-Rodriguez knew of that near-fatal overdose when she sold the victim the pills a week later, the release states.
During the investigation, law enforcement found a safe at Nunez’s home containing more than 900 fake oxycodone pills, matching the appearance of the fentanyl-laced pills found at the scene of the Bellingham teen’s death.
Under terms of Nunez’s plea agreement, the prosecution and defense will recommend a prison term of seven to nine years, but Judge Martinez is free to impose any sentence allowed by statute.
The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, Whatcom County Drug and Gang Task Force, Bellingham Police Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.
