A federal judge on Monday sentenced a Los Angeles County man to 15 years and eight months in prison for dealing 19,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl in 2021.
Juan Luis Martinez, a 48-year-old Bell resident, received the sentence after a jury found him guilty July 24 of one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, one count of distribution of fentanyl and one count of distribution of methamphetamine. a statement from the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. The verdict was handed down after a trial that lasted two days.
In October 2021, Martinez delivered more than 19,000 pills laced with fentanyl, packaged in a plastic bag stuffed into a bra, to two women in a parking lot. The women then took the thousands of pills and delivered them to three men at another location. Law enforcement officers followed the women and later arrested the three men and seized the drugs.
According to federal prosecutors, Martinez also sold more than 300 grams of meth to someone two months later, in December 2021.
He has been in federal custody since January of last year.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case along with local law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the police departments of the cities of Hawthorne, Orange and Placentia.
