Santa Ana man who called himself ‘Oxygod’ sentenced to 17½ years in prison for selling counterfeit opioid pills laced with fentanyl
A Santa Ana man who lived in a high-rise penthouse and called himself “Oxygod” was sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison for using fentanyl and other synthetic opioids to make and sell counterfeit pills designed to look like oxycodone, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Wyatt Pasek, 22, was arrested in April 2018 and charged along with two other men involved in the scheme that involved soliciting customers online through the dark web, according to Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Pasek, who posted images and videos of himself to social media under the moniker Yung10x, pleaded guilty in November of participating in a narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, money laundering and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
The man had three prior drug-related convictions.
According to court documents, Pasek and Duc Cao, 22, of Orange and Isaiah Suarez, 23, of Newport Beach, obtained fentanyl and cyclopropyl fentanyl online through Chinese suppliers. They used a pill press lab in Suarez’s apartment to manufacture the pills, then distributed them in the mail or in person. They were operating about one year and selling in “massive quantities”, according to prosecutors.
At the time of the trio’s arrest, authorities seized nearly 100,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills, hundreds of fake Xanax pills, fentanyl and cash. In the weeks leading up to the arrest, DEA, IRS and Costa Mesa police investigators recovered blue pills stamped with “A 215” that looked like 30 mg oxycodone and also intercepted packages being sent to Pasek’s customers in states throughout the country.
Cao and Suarez have also pleaded guilty. The former received more than seven years in federal prison while the latter got more than three.
“The defendants in this case played a direct role in fueling this nation’s opioid crisis,” United States Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement. “The use of powerful drugs such as fentanyl in counterfeit pills intentionally made to look like less-lethal opioids demonstrates a complete disrespect for human life.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Pasek apologized during the Monday hearing, saying: “I know I have affected countless [people],” he said. “I can’t even imagine how much damage I have done.”
Pasek, who had three prior drug-related convictions, has forfeited more than $21,000 in cash, gold bars, thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency and jewelry including a gold and diamond Bitcoin necklace.