SAN DIEGO – El Cajon resident Olatunde James Temitope Akintonde was sentenced in federal court today to 15 years in prison for selling fentanyl-laced pills that caused the death of a 19-year-old Santee man, identified in court records as S.J.G., in March of 2019. Akintonde previously admitted that he sent...

COEUR D’ALENE – Dr. Eric Benson, an internist practicing medicine in Post Falls, Idaho, agreed to pay $110,000 to resolve allegations that he unlawfully prescribed opioids and other controlled substances to patients between 2014-2021. The settlement, which was based in part on Dr. Benson’s ability to pay, also restricts the...

SAN DIEGO – San Diego resident Brandon Jacob Shepherd was sentenced in federal court today to thirteen years and eleven months in prison for selling fentanyl that resulted in the death of an eighteen-year-old San Diego woman, identified in court records as P.E.R., in January of 2020. He received one...

BOISE – Luis Leyva Verduzco was sentenced to 82 months in federal prison for possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. According to court records, beginning in early 2020, law enforcement received information that Verduzco, 32, a Mexican national living in Jerome, was involved in the distribution of methamphetamine...

SAN DIEGO – Tony Davis was sentenced today in federal court by U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo to 13 years in prison for supplying the heroin and fentanyl that led to the fatal overdose of a 41-year-old San Diego woman, on October 24, 2018. According to his plea agreement...

SPOKANE, Washington – Christopher M. Valley, N.D., a Spokane-based naturopathic doctor, has agreed to pay $47,700 to resolve allegations under the Controlled Substances Act that he improperly prescribed controlled substances between December 2015 and December 2020. The Controlled Substances Act regulates certain drugs deemed to pose a risk of abuse...

SAN DIEGO - Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr. of Tamaulipas, Mexico, pleaded guilty in federal court today to drug and money laundering charges, admitting that he was the leader of a trafficking organization that transported ton-quantities of cocaine from South America to Mexico and into the United States. According to court...

POCATELLO – A federal jury sitting in Pocatello convicted an Idaho Falls man of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, attempted possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine, and deported alien found in the United States. According to court records and evidence presented at trial, on September 26, 2017, Jose Luis Cruz-Delgado...

SEATTLE – The Drug Enforcement Administration, along with its law enforcement partners, has removed close to 745,000 pounds of unneeded prescriptions from medicine cabinets across the country as part of DEA’s ongoing commitment to turn the tide against the U.S. opioid epidemic. Following last month’s 21st National Prescription Drug Take...

PORTLAND, Ore.—In August and October 2021, coordinated law enforcement operations targeting two Portland-area transnational drug trafficking cells led to the arrests of the cells’ leaders and more than a dozen associates, and the seizure of approximately 200,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills suspected to contain fentanyl, two pounds of fentanyl powder, 40...