TOLEDO, Ohio — A man indicted in 2019 on charges of intent to distribute fentanyl pleaded guilty Friday to a fentanyl trafficking conspiracy in the Toledo area and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to the U.S. District Attorney's Office.
Felipe Penuelas-Rodriguez, 53, was arrested by Toledo police in a June 2019 traffic stop and search with "118 fentanyl pills, a duffel bag containing a kilogram brick of fentanyl and an additional 2,125 fentanyl pills stored in the trunk," the district attorney's office said.
Penuelas-Rodriguez was also convicted of illegal reentry into the U.S. and was removed from the U.S. to Mexico four times before being arrested in Toledo.
He was charged and sentenced under an enhanced penalty due to a prior serious drug trafficking conviction in the Arizona Superior Court.
Penuelas-Rodriguez's passenger at the time of his arrest, Reyna Trejo, was charged as a co-conspirator and sentenced to five years in prison on Dec. 5, 2022.
After their arrest in 2019, U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said drugs that were found with the men, both from Mesa, Arizona, are sufficient to kill thousands of people.
“The fentanyl pills stamped to look like prescription painkillers are another reminder that there are no safe drugs available on the street,” Herdman said in 2019.
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