Man gets 11 years in fatal drug case
Redlands felon sold deadly dose of fentanyl to Calimesa resident
A felon who sold a fatal dose of fentanyl to a 36-year-old Calimesa man was sentenced Monday to 11 years in state prison.
Gregory Robert Oviatt, 35, of Redlands pleaded guilty last month to voluntary manslaughter under a plea agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his admission, prosecutors dropped a second-degree murder charge against him.
During a hearing at the Banning Justice Center, Superior Court Judge Mark Singerton certified the terms of the negotiated plea and imposed the maximum sentence for the offense.
Oviatt was arrested in March following a sheriff’s investigation into the death of Eric Lopez.
Oviatt is among two dozen people who, since February 2021, have been charged countywide in connection with fentanyl-related fatalities.
Although the District Attorney’s Office agreed to the plea to the lesser charge — allowing Oviatt to avoid potentially much more prison time — the DA will continue to file murder charges in other cases when appropriate, spokeswoman Amy McKenzie said.
“Plea negotiations in every case are unique, with several factors considered, importantly including the thoughts of the victim’s family. After careful review and consideration, dutifully taking every step to evaluate the resolution, our office ultimately accepted the defendant’s offer to resolve his case,” McKenzie wrote in an email. She declined to say specifically why prosecutors accepted the plea deal in Oviatt’s case.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. Ryan Marcuse, Oviatt was linked to Lopez’s death following a nearly two-monthlong investigation.
Marcuse said on the morning of Jan. 27, deputies and paramedics were sent to a residence in the 10000 block of Desert Lawn Drive, near Brookside Avenue, in response to reports of a possible drug-related cardiac arrest.
Lopez was found dead at the location, Marcuse said, adding that an autopsy revealed “fentanyl poisoning” as the cause of the fatality, prompting an investigation that ultimately pointed to Oviatt as the dealer who supplied an undisclosed quantity of the synthetic opioid to the victim.
The defendant was arrested without incident at his Oak Valley Road residence on March 20.
According to court records, he has prior
convictions for grand theft, possession of controlled substances and hit-andrun resulting in property damage.
According to sheriff’s officials, there have been 415 fentanyl-related deaths to date this year. In 2021, there were just over 400 — a 200-fold increase from 2016.
Statistics published in May by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed there were roughly 108,000 fatal drug overdoses in 2021, and fentanyl poisoning accounted for over 80,000 of them.