WASHINGTON COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — Two men have been sentenced after they were convicted of selling pressed pills that contained fentanyl in southwestern Virginia, causing the overdose of two teenagers.
According to the United States Department of Justice, 21-year-old Paul Mason Perkins of Big Stone Gap and 23-year-old Austin Jeremiah Lane of Norton were both sentenced to 42 months and 36 months respectively on Thursday, March 9.
In June of 2022, Perkins and Lane pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl.
According to court documents, Perkins made purchases every few weeks of over 1,000 pills at a time using various social media platforms between February 2021 and February 2022. He would then distribute the pills, which contained fentanyl, to Lane, a third defendant by the name of Cheyenne Cassie Carico and others in southwestern Virginia.
In November of 2021, pills sold by Lane and Carico caused the overdose of two teens, one of whom was on a ventilator for six days. Both teens were eventually revived and Perkins, Lane and Carico admitted to distributing fentanyl when interviewed by police.
Perkins led police to his suppliers in California but did not know their true identities, telling investigators that he would send cash to an address sent to him from an Instagram account by the name of “galexy710” and receive fentanyl pills in return.
Eventually, police were able to identify the owner of the Instagram account as 25-year-old Alexander Ortiz and determine that 24-year-old Jorge Efrain Perez, Jr. purchased the postage for packages mailed from California to Perkins in Virginia.
Investigators later identified 23-year-old Destiny Raeann Perez as a suspect and all three later pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute more than 400 grams of fentanyl.
Carico pleaded guilty to the same charges as Perkins and Lane, and is set to be sentenced in April.
