RivCo man who supplied deadly dose of fentanyl headed to state prison
A 53-year-old man who sold a lethal dose of fentanyl to a Temecula resident was bound for state prison today to serve an 11-year sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
Kevin Michael Bryant of Carlsbad pleaded guilty to the felony count Friday under a negotiated agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. In exchange for Bryant's admission, prosecutors dropped a second-degree murder charge against him.
Superior Court Judge F. Paul Dickerson certified the terms of the plea bargain and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense.
Bryant provided 43-year-old Cameron Trask with the fentanyl-laced pills that precipitated his death on Feb. 12, 2022.
According to sheriff's Sgt. Sean Liebrand, patrol deputies were called to a business in the 27500 block of Jefferson Avenue in Temecula to investigate reports of a man down and found Trask dead.
Liebrand said an autopsy that was performed soon afterward confirmed that the victim ``died as a result of fentanyl poisoning,'' at which point homicide detectives took over the investigation and ``worked relentlessly'' until identifying Bryant ``as the suspect responsible for selling the fentanyl that killed Trask.''
An arrest warrant was obtained, culminating in the defendant being taken into custody at San Ysidro Port of Entry along the U.S.-Mexico border at he end of February 2023.
Bryant, who had no documented prior felony convictions, is one of more than two dozen individuals charged in connection with fentanyl-induced deaths in Riverside County since February 2021.
In November, the District Attorney's Office closed the books on its first fentanyl murder case to go before a jury, culminating in the conviction of 34-year-old Vicente David Romero, who was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 2020 death of a Temecula woman.
Preliminary data released last month by the county Department of Public Health showed there were 388 confirmed fentanyl-related fatalities countywide in 2023, a 23% decline from 2022, when there were 503.
Fentanyl is manufactured in overseas labs, principally in China, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which says the synthetic opioid is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels.
The drug is 80-100 times more potent than morphine and can be mixed into any number of street narcotics and prescription drugs, without a user knowing what he or she is consuming. Ingestion of only two milligrams can be fatal.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old.
