A Greybull man convicted of manslaughter for dealing the fentanyl pills that led to another man’s fatal 2023 overdose says he got bad advice and accepted a 15- to 20-year prison sentence for a crime that doesn’t exist.
His case marked the first time in Wyoming someone had been convicted and sentenced for selling fentanyl-laced drugs that resulted in the death of another person.
Anthony Fuentes, 38, is asking District Court Judge Bill Simpson to undo his Alford plea, which is a variation of a guilty plea by which a man can accept a plea agreement without admitting guilt. If the judge grants his request, the state can go back to prosecuting him and Fuentes could strike a new plea agreement or go to trial.
Simpson has scheduled a June 17 hearing where Fuentes’ attorney H. Michael Bennett is set to square off against Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric.
Jordan Jackson, 25, of Cody was found dead in his apartment Jan. 2, 2023, from a fentanyl overdose, according to court documents.
Special Agent Jonathan Shane Reece of the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) testified that he traced Jackson’s purchase of drugs back to Fuentes using Jackson's phone after his death.
The agent then used the Signal messaging app on Jackson’s phone to buy two suspected fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone pills that later tested positive for fentanyl and led to Fuentes’ arrest.
When questioned by the agent, Fuentes later admitted to getting 40 counterfeit pills in Denver, two of which he sold to Jordan for $80, the documents say.
The Plea Agreement
In his Park County case, Fuentes was charged with one count of manslaughter and another of conspiring to deliver drugs.
The manslaughter charge carried a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, while the drug charge was punishable by up to 40 years in prison because it contained a doubling enhancement triggered by an earlier drug conviction.
Though he initially pleaded not guilty, Fuentes ultimately gave the Alford plea on the manslaughter charge in exchange for then-Park County Deputy Attorney Jack Hatfield II dropping the 40-year drug charge.
Fuentes’ appeals lawyer, Bennett, is now arguing that Fuentes’ attorney Christina Cherni led him astray and counseled him to plead to a crime that doesn’t exist.
Cowboy Country Criminal Defense had struck a representation agreement with Fuentes at the time.
Cherni on Monday declined to comment on the case, noting that she’s been called to testify on it at next month’s hearing.
Bennett’s filed argument says Wyoming’s manslaughter charge doesn’t account for drug crimes, and its drug-induced homicide charge only applies when a minor suffers a fatal overdose.
A person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Wyoming if he unlawfully kills someone without malice, involuntarily and recklessly.
Selling someone a drug that the person takes willingly and on which he overdoses doesn’t fit that definition, Bennett argues. He also maintains that Cherni should have challenged the prosecutor’s use of that law in this case, but didn’t.
“Delivery of these fentanyl pills may have contributed to the overdose, but there’s no evidence contained in the affidavit of probable cause alleging anything other than a drug-induced homicide,” wrote Bennett, who noted that Fuentes wasn’t with Jackson when the man died by inhaling the drug.
His attorney “did not file a single motion challenging the state’s charge of manslaughter, and in fact counseled him to plead guilty to a series of facts that do not support a manslaughter conviction,” he added.
What Lawmakers Tried To Do
Bennett has to clear a two-part bar if he wants Judge Simpson to accept this argument: He has to show that Cherni’s advice wasn’t “counsel” at all under the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment’s promise of counsel in criminal cases, and that this swayed the outcome of the case.
One factor that may be standing in his way is that Fuentes swore under oath when giving his Alford plea that he was doing so intelligently and voluntarily, and that he was satisfied with his counsel.
Bennett contends that the Wyoming Legislature’s maneuvers in 2023 indicate that lawmakers don’t believe the state’s manslaughter charge applies to the drug dealers of overdose victims.
That year, lawmakers tried to expand the state’s drug-induced homicide law to prosecute dealers with adult victims in cases involving hard drugs, but the effort failed.
That failure “cannot be circumvented by the executive branch’s willingness to pound square pegs into round holes,” wrote Bennett.
The Good Deal
Skoric in his counterargument theorized that for Fuentes to undo his change of plea will hurt rather than help him, since the plea agreement Cherni secured in exchange for his Alford plea cut his potential penalties by two-thirds, from a possible 60 years in prison to no more than 20.
He also pointed to Fuentes’ swearing under oath that he was satisfied with Cherni’s representation.
The prosecutor countered Bennett’s emphasis on the Legislature trying to make a law that would have better encapsulated Fuentes’ conduct.
“(He speculates) that the Wyoming Legislature’s recent attempt to codify adult victim (drug-induced homicides) signifies that the manslaughter statute is not meant to criminalize the same conduct,” wrote Skoric.
But this isn’t proof enough that manslaughter doesn’t apply, he indicated, writing: “Determining the specific legislative intent behind a particular law is somewhat akin to searching for the Loch Ness Monster.”
Take That One To Cheyenne
Bennett had also appealed Hatfield’s use of the affidavit as a “factual basis” or a kind of stand-in for a confession, to support Fuentes’ Alford plea.
That document didn’t support the manslaughter charge either, Bennett argued in his filing.
Skoric argued back that a factual basis to register someone’s plea doesn’t have to meet the rigorous, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard juries require to convict someone.
But that particular appeal belongs in the Wyoming Supreme Court, not in the district court to which the high court sent the ineffective assistance of counsel claim, added Skoric.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
