La Puente man sentenced to prison for trafficking fentanyl from California to Connecticut – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

A La Puente man was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for trafficking 55 pounds of fentanyl from California to Connecticut, officials said.

In August 2018, Omar Villarreal, 27, of La Puente, took a plea deal from prosecutors, pleading guilty to one count of aiding and abetting the possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute, and one count of traveling in interstate commerce to promote an unlawful activity, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut in a news release. In addition to the seven years in federal prison, his sentence carries three years of supervised release.

Villarreal had traveled from La Puente to Connecticut in October 2016, where he lived for about one month, returning to California in time for Thanksgiving, prosecutors said in court documents. While in Connecticut, prosecutors said, Villarreal stayed in a house in Waterbury, Conn. to coordinate an illegal shipment of fentanyl and to prepare a stash house for future drug trafficking operations.

The government used a convicted felon and former drug trafficker as an informant to foil the plan. After his return to California, Villarreal had facilitated the shipments by phone, calling the informant, and the man driving a tractor-trailer carrying the drugs, prosecutors said.

On Dec. 20, 2016, Villarreal called the informant to let him know the fentanyl shipment would soon arrive in Connecticut. In the early hours of the next morning, the informant directed the driver of the tractor-trailer carrying the shipment to a Waterbury address. While on his way, Drug Enforcement Agency agents and local police carried out their planned stop of the tractor-trailer and searched the trailer. Inside K9 units found a box containing 25 brick-like packages placed inside vacuum-sealed bags, prosecutors said. The packages held 55 pounds of pure fentanyl.

Villarreal was arrested the following May for his part in the plot.

Defense attorneys for Villarreal had argued that he was merely a pawn in a greater scheme, and it was Villarreal’s godfather who orchestrated the shipments, attorneys said in a sentencing memo. Prior to the 2016 drug-bust, and before the government’s informant had made a deal with agents, the man had spent prison time with Villarreal’s godfather, the defense said. While in prison, the two became friends and planned for future illegal activity.

After his release, the man was arrested by federal agents for a separate drug trafficking case. The defense said federal agents convinced the man to become an informant in exchange for softening the legal consequences of the drug trafficking charge. Federal agents directed the informant to call Villarreal’s godfather to set up the 2016 Connecticut fentanyl shipment. Villarreal’s godfather had tapped Villarreal for the job, the defense said, and was only following his instruction.

The defense had asked the judge to consider a sentence of 36 months, which was denied.

Prosecutors noted in court documents that Connecticut has a growing market, both legal and illegal, for opioids, such as fentanyl.

In 2017, 955 people died of opioid overdoses in Connecticut with a rate of death twice the national rate, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. In 2016, synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, caused the death of 79 people. By 2017, the number of fentanyl-related deaths rose to 686.