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NORRISTOWN — Characterizing a Philadelphia woman as a drug dealer who was a danger to the community, a judge sent to her prison for up to eight years for supplying heroin mixed with fentanyl to a Lower Merion Township man who suffered a fatal overdose during an Uber ride home after he purchased the drugs.
“This case arises out of your being a drug dealer. There does need to be consequences for your actions as a drug dealer. As a drug dealer, you were and are a danger to the community,” Montgomery County Judge Wendy G. Rothstein addressed Jessica Marie Lopez as she sentenced Lopez to 4 to 8 years in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in connection with her role in the June 15, 2020, overdose death of Matthew Warren, 33, of Narberth.
“You repeatedly sold drugs to Matthew Warren. You did this to make a profit,” said Rothstein, adding Lopez acted recklessly and essentially was playing a lethal game of chance like “Russian roulette” because street drugs today are often laced with deadly fentanyl.
Prosecutors said fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and is often present in overdose deaths. Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs like heroin or cocaine.
Lopez, 29, of the 100 block of East Sterner Street, previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of drug delivery resulting in death in connection with Warren’s death.
Under a limited agreement, Assistant District Attorney Kathleen McLaughlin had agreed to cap the sentence at 4 to 8 years of incarceration and that is the term for which she argued during the sentencing hearing.
“The defendant was a drug dealer. She would like you to believe she isn’t,” McLaughlin argued, responding to Lopez’s characterization that she and Warren were friends who sometimes ingested drugs together. “The evidence showed that Miss Lopez was a dealer. This was a longstanding drug user/drug dealer relationship…and each time, as the judge said, the defendant was playing Russian roulette with the drugs that she was giving the victim.
“Fentanyl is out there. In almost everything you take or receive from the street, the likelihood is that fentanyl will be there. The defendant dealt a lethal dose of heroin and fentanyl to Matthew on June 15, 2020. That was not a mistake or a bad decision. That was a choice that she made and she’s now suffering the consequences of that choice,” McLaughlin added.
Defense lawyer Anthony Francis Godshall sought a sentence of 1 to 2 years imprisonment for Lopez, arguing she had a dysfunctional upbringing and suffered from depression and a substance use disorder and is amenable to treatment.
“Miss Lopez is a single mother attempting to raise her child. She is amenable to treatment and help,” Godshall argued while several friends and relatives of Lopez asked the judge to show mercy and to give Lopez a second chance.
Lopez told the judge, “I’m not just a drug dealer,” claiming she was friends with Warren and has been grieving his death. Lopez pleaded for a house arrest sentence so she could be with her 4-year-old son.
But Rothstein explained Lopez had already received mercy and mitigation when prosecutors agreed to cap their sentence recommendation. Rothstein said Lopez could have faced even more prison time had prosecutors not agreed to the cap.
Warren’s grieving parents and wife recalled Warren’s battle with substance use disorder.
“He was not happy being addicted to drugs,” Leonard Warren, the victim’s father, told the judge as he described his son’s attempts to overcome his addiction to opioids through counseling and stays at rehabilitation facilities.
Leonard Warren choked back tears as he recalled holding his son in his arms at the hospital when he was born and later holding his son’s hands as he was pronounced dead on June 15, 2020, from the fatal overdose. Leonard Warren said the fentanyl his son received gave him no chance of survival.
“That ended our dreams or hope that we had for him. It has affected us every day,” Leonard Warren said.
Warren’s mother, Carol, said her son was born and raised in Wall, N.J., received his bachelor’s degree in communications in 2010 from Cabrini University in Radnor Township and was an avid fan of both the New York Giants and Yankees.
“In the last few years he coached Cal Ripken youth baseball and also gave private batting lessons. He told his dad he wanted to teach his players all the things that his dad taught him about baseball,” Carol Warren said as she read her son’s obituary in court, adding her son is survived by his wife and precious baby “who he loved and cherished with all of his heart.”
The investigation began about 5:28 p.m. on June 15 when township police and a Narberth Ambulance crew responded to the intersection of St. Asaphs and Conshohocken State roads, in the Bala Cynwyd section of Lower Merion, for a report of a medical emergency. Arriving officers found Warren deceased, lying across the back seat of a vehicle operated by an Uber driver, according to the criminal complaint filed by Special Montgomery County Detective Andrew Rook and Lower Merion Detective Gregory Pitchford.
The Uber driver told police he had picked up Warren on Sterner Street in Philadelphia and was driving Warren to his Price Street residence in Narberth when Warren became unresponsive. The Uber driver pulled to the side of the road and called 911.
Investigators searched Warren and located his cellphone and a money clip holding seven small, glassine bags, stamped with the red label “ROCKY,” that contained a powdery substance determined to contain heroin and fentanyl, according to court papers. Investigators also found two empty bags of the same type and a straw, consistent with being used to snort heroin/fentanyl.
Forensic analysis determined the seven bags found on Warren contained a combination of caffeine, fentanyl, heroin and xylazine. The two empty bags and the straw were found to contain either combinations of caffeine and fentanyl or caffeine, fentanyl and heroin, according to court documents.
An autopsy determined the cause of Warren’s death was from fentanyl intoxication. A forensic pathologist opined Warren “died from the lethal dose of fentanyl found in his system, and it was a direct and substantial factor in his death,” according to the criminal complaint.
Detectives subsequently extracted the contents of Warren’s cellphone to reveal drug-related text message exchanges with Lopez and 33 payments, using a cash transfer app, totaling approximately $2,000 to Lopez between Nov. 20, 2019, and the day of Warren’s death.
“It is our opinion that Lopez was Warren’s primary drug supplier,” Rook and Pitchford alleged in the arrest affidavit.
Warren’s cellphone history also revealed multiple trips using Uber to East Sterner Street in Philadelphia.
Armed with a warrant on July 21, detectives searched Lopez’s home and seized drug packaging materials, scales, marijuana, pills and a loaded .32-caliber Deringer firearm, according to court documents. With the charges, authorities alleged Lopez had a prior drug conviction that prohibited her from possessing a firearm.
Other charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, criminal use of a communication facility and person not to possess firearms were dismissed against Lopez in exchange for her guilty plea to the most serious charge.
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