A 24-year-old Santa Ana man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday for dealing a deadly dose of fentanyl to an 18-year-old Tustin woman.
Isai Hernandez Higinio pleaded guilty Jan. 30 to possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl.
The defendant agreed to sell oxycodone pills to Adriana Davies in February 2021, but the drugs were counterfeit and contained fentanyl, according to prosecutors. She died early Feb. 5, 2021. When investigators served a search warrant on the defendant’s residence they found 23 counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl.
Davies’ father said in a victim impact statement that about five years ago his daughter got in a traffic collision and was treated for back pain with physical therapy and oxycontin.
“Although she generally recovered from the accident, she did not completely recover from a dependence on the pain killer,” he wrote.
Her mother went to wake her the morning of her overdose, the victim’s father said.
“It was pure hell discovering Adriana and being unable to wake her, frantically calling 911, then administering CPR until paramedics arrived, and then receiving a verbal knife to the heart when she was told there was nothing they could do,” her father wrote.
The victim’s mother said, “There are no words to describe the pain I feel every day since Feb. 5, 2021, or the profound sense of loss our family has experienced. I have difficulty sleeping and difficulty maintaining concentration at times.”
She said her daughter was “gifted and very talented,” and was “also kind, humble and a very good friend. Her friends described her as the one who never had a mean thing to say about anyone and the one that tried to ensure that everyone got along.”
Hernandez wrote a letter to the parents of the victims apologizing for his role in her death.
“Truly, not a day goes by that I do not think about my carelessness, bad decisions and my personal negligence which caused her death,”…
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