A Sept. 22 trial date was confirmed Monday for a probationer accused of supplying a deadly dose of fentanyl to a 29-year-old Lake Mathews man.
John Frederick Sandoval, 30, of Jurupa Valley, was arrested in 2023 following a nearly four-month-long Riverside County Sheriff’s Department investigation into the death of George Sandoval, a possible but unconfirmed relative of the defendant.
John Sandoval is charged with second-degree murder.
During a pretrial hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Monday, Superior Court Judge Melissa Hale conferred with the prosecution and defense regarding scheduling, and both sides agreed to clear their calendars in preparation for trial proceedings in late September.
The defendant is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Sean Liebrand, on the morning of April 7, 2023, patrol deputies and paramedics were called to the victim’s residence in the 22000 block of Piedras Road, near Gavilan Road, to investigate reports of an unconscious man.
Deputies attempted life-saving measures on the victim until paramedics arrived and continued to try to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
“The coroner’s bureau later determined that he died as a result of fentanyl poisoning, and the case was assumed by the sheriff’s Overdose Investigations & Narcotics Unit,” Liebrand said. “As a result of their efforts, the suspect was identified as John Sandoval.”
A search warrant was obtained and served in early June 2023 at John Sandoval’s residence in the 8400 block of Saddle Creek Drive, where deputies “deputies seized two kilos of suspected fentanyl,” the sergeant said.
He said Sandoval was booked into jail on drug-related charges, not for murder, as the investigation was incomplete. The defendant pleaded guilty less than three weeks later to two counts of possession of controlled substances for sale, as well as being a narcotic addict in possession of a firearm and possession of an assault rifle.
He was sentenced to two years’ felony probation.
By the end of August 2023, detectives had gathered sufficient evidence to seek a murder charge against him, and the District Attorney’s Office filed a new criminal complaint.
In addition to his most recent conviction, Sandoval has a prior misdemeanor conviction for driving under the influence.
Since February 2021, prosecutors have charged more than three dozen people countywide in connection with fentanyl poisonings.
In November 2023, the D.A.’s office 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. District Attorney Mike Hestrin said it was the first fentanyl murder conviction in the state.
According to public health statistics, there were 328 known fentanyl-related fatalities countywide in 2024, compared to 571 in 2023, a 42% decline.
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.
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.