A convicted felon accused of providing a deadly dose of fentanyl to a 27-year-old Moreno Valley man will return to court next month for a case conference.
Savanna Michelle Carlos, 21, of Moreno Valley is accused of causing the death of Jesse Jimenez last year.
Carlos is charged with second-degree murder.
She pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in December, after she was transferred to Riverside County from the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore, where she served a jail term for unspecified offenses in San Bernardino County.
The defendant has a settlement conference scheduled before Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gail O’Rane on March 12 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.
Carlos is being held in lieu of $1 million at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Sean Liebrand, on Feb. 2, 2023, patrol deputies were sent to a residence in the 21600 block of Winding Road, near Yolo Street, to investigate reports of a man down.
Liebrand said the deputies discovered Jimenez unconscious and unresponsive, at which point they attempted life-saving measures until paramedics arrived and continued to try to resuscitate him, but couldn’t. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
“The coroner’s bureau determined Jimenez died as a result of fentanyl poisoning,” the sergeant said. “Investigators worked to identify the suspect responsible for selling the fentanyl that killed him. As a result of their efforts, the suspect was identified as Carlos.”
He said that detectives went to the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in late October and formally informed the probationer that she would be facing charges in Riverside County once her term of incarceration was completed in San Bernardino County.
The circumstances regarding how Carlos met Jimenez and allegedly supplied him with the fentanyl were not disclosed.
According to court records, she has a prior conviction in Riverside County for forgery.
Since February 2021, more than two dozen individuals countywide have been charged with murder in connection with fentanyl poisonings.
In November, prosecutors closed the books on the county’s 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 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 drug is smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border by cartels.
Fentanyl 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.