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A man federal prosecutors believe was one of the largest suppliers of deadly blue fentanyl pills that led to a rash of overdoses and killed Carrollton-Farmers Branch high school students was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison.
Like the other dealers already sentenced, Jason Xavier Villanueva, 23, was not long out of high school when he used his Instagram account as an online drug marketplace. And he continued selling the fentanyl pills, a prosecutor noted, even after news of the fatal overdoses created a wave of panic, sorrow and alarm across North Texas schools and communities.
Villanueva was one of three young men who pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison Wednesday morning by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in a federal courthouse in Dallas. A DEA task force agent, the lead investigator, told the judge Villanueva supplied at least 250,000 of the small M30 pills he knew were laced with deadly fentanyl.
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U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton and Eduardo Chávez, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Dallas office, watched from the front row as a young fentanyl victim’s mother and her best friend tearfully shared their grief in victim impact statements about the girl’s death.
Juliet Pena, 14, said she first met Victoria Dominguez in seventh grade and the two quickly became close and were cheerleaders together.
“With the blink of an eye, my life was turned upside down,” Juliet said.
Victoria, a student at DeWitt Perry Middle School, fatally overdosed at her Carrollton home in December 2022. She was the sister of a Dallas police officer and the daughter of a Dallas firefighter, her mother said.
Kinkeade gave another fentanyl dealer who sold pills to Victoria, Rafael Soliz Jr., 15 years in prison.
Soliz sold pills to Victoria just days before she died. He also instructed her on social media how to crush and snort the pills, “much like an animal preying on smaller prey,” the DEA agent said.
A third North Texas fentanyl dealer, Robert Alexander Gaitan, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The DEA agent, whose agency asked that he not be identified for safety reasons, told Kinkeade the three drug dealers impressed their young customers with nice cars and guns. They advertised and sold fentanyl pills through social media and delivered them to homes and workplaces, authorities said.
“They embedded themselves into a juvenile community where they were looked up to,” the agent testified.
When she settled into bed on what seemed like an average Saturday night, Victoria was still aglow from her team winning a recent cheer competition. Her mother, Idalia Vasquez, couldn’t wake her the next morning.
“Victoria was cold,” she said from the witness stand. “I will never, never have my daughter back.”
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Vasquez, a Dallas college professor, said paramedics told her Victoria had been dead for about five hours. Her daughter, who aspired to be a lawyer, was smart and loved by her teachers, she said.
“My happy life was taken apart when she died,” she said. “My entire life was dedicated to her.”
The Dallas Morning News was first to report in February about a rash of North Texas students overdosing from fentanyl. At the time, three Carrollton-Farmers Branch students were among those who died. Now, four of the district’s students have overdosed and died.
Families of the three defendants and the victim packed the courtroom Wednesday in downtown Dallas for the fraught sentencing hearings and passed around tissue boxes. The three men are among 10 defendants all indicted together last year. Another 10 fentanyl dealers, all juveniles, are being prosecuted in Dallas County state court, authorities said.
The pills were sold in school cafeterias, in some cases, for $10 each, authorities said. Kinkeade at one point became emotional, saying “We can’t keep this up” and wondering aloud whether elementary school students would be the next customers.
Villanueva
Villanueva’s grandfather, Ramon Perez, 65, is serving a life sentence in federal prison for trafficking methamphetamine. Kinkeade noted that he sent Perez there in 2005.
The short-statured and baby-faced Villanueva first had to face his mother, who sat in the witness box and spoke directly to him, telling him of the shame, embarrassment and guilt she felt when he was arrested. His mother left without providing her name.
“Drugs have been a curse in our family,” she said. “This lifestyle has only two endings — prison or death.”
Marshall McCallum, his attorney, told the judge he’s never had a more remorseful client. He said Villanueva had a difficult childhood during which he witnessed abuse and violence. He said his client has a minor criminal history and suffers from mental illness.
Villanueva apologized for his “thoughtless and reckless” behavior.
“I understand my actions were dangerous,” he told Kinkeade.
The DEA agent, a combat veteran, told the judge seeing dead children from a drug epidemic was worse than his experience in the military. He said that, when he first heard about the teen overdoses, he reached out directly to Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Calvert, who grew up in the Carrollton area and attended DeWitt Perry Middle School and R.L. Turner High School. Calvert agreed to drop everything else and focus on these cases, he said.
Luis Navarette, a co-defendant who pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, operated out of a Carrollton house that was “ground zero” for the fentanyl distribution network, the agent said. And Villanueva was one of his main sources of M30 pills, he said.
The agent said Villanueva knew the pills were being made in Mexico.
Kinkeade told Villanueva it was too late to preach to him.
“You destroyed too many lives; too many people.”
Soliz
Vincent Carrizales, the attorney for Soliz, said his client was a “junkie” caught in the grip of the highly addictive fentanyl pills. He said it wasn’t a defense but that it explained his client’s behavior.
“That substance took over his life,” Carrizales said.
Soliz, 22, a high school dropout, had no intent to take a life, he said, and no criminal history.
“He grew into a monster” while consumed by fentanyl, Carrizales said.
Soliz’s response to the growing federal investigation was to post “f–k the feds” on social media, authorities said. On Wednesday, he apologized during his brief remarks and said he was “embarrassed and mad” that he became a part of the fentanyl scourge.
He first connected on Instagram with Victoria, the DeWitt Perry student, in November 2022 when she messaged him about acquiring the pills he advertised, the DEA agent said. During the chat, Soliz asked her how old she was. He was surprised to learn she was 13. Did that mean he wouldn’t sell to her anymore, she asked.
“If u be smart with it…And keep it on the down low,” he replied. “I don’t want u t get caught up or in trouble.”
She was dead about two weeks later.
“You have to live with that,” Kinkeade told him. “You preyed on this sweet teenage girl.”
Gaitan
Gaitan, 20, told Kinkeade before he was sentenced that the victims will always be in his heart and prayers.
His lawyer, Joey Mongaras, said his client was a user of the pills and became addicted to Oxycontin at age 14. Gaitan spent $400 a week buying pills for himself, he said, and mostly transported them from one location to another. He also worked with his father in the family painting business, he said.
“He’s not a big time dealer,” Mongaras said. “Robert was one pill away from suffering the same fate.”
He said his client was still experiencing withdrawal symptoms and barely coherent when he first met with him.
The agent, however, said Gaitan ignored his warning to stop dealing after an encounter during the investigation when the dealer was caught with pills.
Kinkeade told him to ditch his drug contacts when he gets out of prison.
“Those aren’t friends,” he said. “The people who love you are sitting right there.”