The final of five people charged in the fatal fentanyl overdose of a Colorado inmate received prison sentences on Wednesday. The medicines that killed her were smuggled into jail in the corpse of another lady.
Alizon Lopez was discovered unresponsive in her cell by her cellmate at 2:30 p.m. on May 21, 2022, shortly after completing her work shift in the jail’s laundry. Jail officers and nursing staff quickly started CPR and phoned for an ambulance. But Lopez never recovered.
Months later, the Mesa County Coroner’s Office determined Lopez died from fentanyl toxicity. It described her death as an accident.
The 28-year-old Grand Junction mother of four was jailed in Mesa County Jail on drug-related charges.
By December, federal prosecutors in Denver, with the assistance of a Grand Junction grand jury, had determined that five people – a longtime drug dealer in Arizona, three Colorado residents who purchased the fentanyl pills from him, and one inmate through whom the drug reached Lopez – were responsible for his death.
All five are currently serving federal prison terms.
Jeremiah Robinson was the initial source. According to a case filing, Robinson, a 44-year-old Phoenix resident and six-time convicted offender, used the CashApp handle “$jackjames1996.” He sold out of an old white van with flaking paint.
On May 7, 2022, he met Efrain Velez in a Phoenix park, as he had done several times before. Velez, a 36-year-old from Denver, bought hundreds of blue tablets. According to authorities, the pills were marked with an “M” on one side and a “30” on the other, similar to Mallinckrodt, Inc.’s Oxycodone pills.
However, like the majority of the M30s brought to Colorado, these tablets were counterfeit, contained fentanyl, and were fatal. The case filings do not say if Velez was aware that the pills contained fentanyl.
Velez was accompanied today by his girlfriend, Vanessa Vasquez, 40, of Denver. Anna Munday, 30, of Clifton, was also present, a lady the duo had recently befriended and decided to include in the drug sale.
The following day, the three were stopped after crossing the state boundary into Colorado. As they came to a halt, Velez and Vasquez injected hundreds of fentanyl pills into their bodies. Other drugs remained in the car, and the trio was arrested.
Velez did not succeed in concealing his hoard. According to his plea deal, numerous tablets came out of his pants leg during a police questioning. Later that day, he sought emergency medical attention for the unknown amount of pills that remained in his system.
Vasquez, however, kept her secret. She and Munday were booked into Mesa County Detention Center. Once inside, they joined forces with Karlie Locke, a 31-year-old Clifton woman who had already spent time in the penitentiary since 2009.
According to Velez’s plea agreement, the three ladies distributed the tablets among the inmates. Inmates paid for the drugs with money, clothing, and stuff from the jail commissary.
Twelve days after entering Vasquez’s jail, the fentanyl pills were handed over to Lopez and her cellmate, crushed and wrapped in a yellow paper note. Lopez reportedly consumed half of her share before her laundry shift and finished the rest when she returned, according to case filings.
Robinson, who sold the pills to Coloradans, was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in jail last year. He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Corrections Institute in Englewood, south of Denver.
Last week, Velez was sentenced to 15 years. Munday received 10 that day.
Locke had previously been rated 10.
Vasquez, the woman who smuggled the drugs into jail, received the shortest sentence – nine years.
“Jeremiah Robinson valued the profit from his drug trade over the lives of his customers,” Acting United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Matt Kirsch said in a press release. “Wherever you operate, if you sell drugs that make their way into Colorado, our office will find you and hold you accountable.”
The US Drug Enforcement Agency assisted with the investigation.
A representative for the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the case or the penalties. She mentioned upcoming lawsuits as her reason.
Source: Five sentenced for delivering fentanyl that killed Colorado inmate
