WISE COUNTY, Va. — A California man has been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison after he sold fentanyl linked to two teenage overdoses in Wise County, Virginia.
Alexander Ortiz, 26, of Fullerton, Calif., pleaded guilty in Jan. 2023 to one count of conspiring to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl, possession of 400 grams or more of fentanyl with intent to distribute and one count of possessing a firearm while committing a drug trafficking crime.
According to court documents, Ortiz and his co-conspirators, Jorge Efrain Perez and Destiny Raeann Perez, sold fentanyl to Aaron Stidham, Paul Mason Perkins, Austin Jeremiah Lane, Cheyenne Cassie Carico and others in southwestern Virginia.
Between Nov. 2020, and June 2022, Ortiz sold thousands of pressed pills containing fentanyl to Perkins and others, according to the Western District of Virginia Attorney’s Office.
Ortiz sold 1,000 pills at a time to Perkins every few weeks using the social media platforms Snapchat and Instagram, mailing them to Perkins at his home in the town of Big Stone Gap in Wise County.
Perkins then sold the pills around Wise County, including multiple sales to Lane and Carico, according to the Attorney’s Office. Jorge Perez and Destiny Perez helped Ortiz mail the packages from California to Virginia, as well as other locations throughout the country.
On Nov. 24, 2021, Perkins sold Carico and Lane three pressed pills. The Attorney’s Office said Lane and Carico had bought two of the pills for a 17-year-old girl the two knew from school.
Later that night, the 17-year-old girl was hospitalized due to a drug overdose. Later the same night, an 18-year-old man who had purchased pressed pills containing fentanyl from Perkins was hospitalized due to a drug overdose.
Further investigation revealed that pills from both overdoses were linked to Ortiz.
Search warrants conducted at Ortiz’s homes in Los Banos and Santa Ana, Calif. resulted in the recovery of over 6,000 pressed pills containing fentanyl, around $60,000 in cash and 13 firearms, according to the Attorney’s Office.
