Luis Eduardo Navarrete pleaded guilty last year to selling a controlled substance to people under 21, officials say.
CARROLLTON, Texas — A North Texas man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty last year to dealing drugs to minors that caused multiple overdose deaths from fentanyl, federal officials say.
Luis Eduardo Navarrete, 22, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a Schedule II controlled substance and distribution of a controlled substance to a person under 21 last November.
“Even as children overdosed and died around him, this defendant continued to distribute poisonous pills to juvenile dealers to sell in grade schools,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton in a statement. “Brushing off the pain of his young victims’ family and friends, he delivered fentanyl into the hands of children, extinguishing lives before they’d even really begun. The callousness he displayed is truly chilling. Although we can never bring these kids back, we hope today’s verdict is a balm to their families’ unbearable suffer ing.”
The fentanyl resulted in the deaths of at least four North Texas teens in Carrollton last year, according to officials.
“Today’s a very important day for DEA Dallas and all of those who were involved in this investigation. Defendant Navarrete was one of the first individuals identified in what later became a complex ring of various fentanyl traffickers selling poison in our neighborhoods,” said DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge Eduardo A.. Chavez in a statement. “While we cannot bring back the lives lost and undo so much tragedy amongst the affected families, we are proud that justice has been served and remained committed to fighting illicit fentanyl trafficking in North Texas.”
Navarrete and 10 others were charged after multiple students attending schools in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District overdosed after taking counterfeit “M30” pills that contained fentanyl, according to the Department of Justice.
On Nov. 1, 2023, Navarrete pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute a Schedule II controlled substance (fentanyl) and one count of distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance (fentanyl) to a person under 21 years of age, the DOJ said.
According to plea documents, codefendants admitted that Navarrete routinely dealt fentanyl-laced pills to juveniles from his home in Carrollton. In December 2022, Navarrete was on bond in a Dallas County criminal case and was ordered to house arrest and fitted with an ankle monitor.
Court documents say Navarrete relied on his co-conspirators to pick up the counterfeit pills from “a Dallas-based source of supply” and then deliver them to Navarrete’s home.
The DOJ said Navarrete was known to store the pills near the front door of his home and distributed them to customers who came by his house, including “a network of juvenile dealers,” who also delivered pills to other minors that attended Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD schools: R.L Turner High School, Dewitt Perry Middle School, and Dan F. Long Middle School.