RIVERSIDE A Jurupa Valley woman partly responsible for her 1-year-old son's ingestion of a deadly dose of fentanyl was bound for state prison Wednesday to serve a sentence of 12 years, four months behind bars after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and another felony. Sandy Alyssa Acuna, 25, admitted the manslaughter count, along with child cruelty, under a plea agreement Tuesday with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.
An infant was taken to the hospital in San Francisco Wednesday afternoon following an accidental fentanyl overdose, and two adults linked to the overdose were arrested. Police were called to the scene at a residence on Cravath Street on Treasure Island around 1:23 pm Wednesday. There they found an unresponsive infant, who was then taken to a hospital. Cravath Street is the site of one of the newest residential developments on the island.
David Brian Pearce, a Los Angeles man who lured women into his orbit by claiming he was a Hollywood producer, was sentenced Wednesday to 146 years to life for the fatal overdose of a model and her friend, as well as the sexual assaults of multiple women over 16 years. Pearce, 43, was convicted in February on two counts of first-degree murder in the overdose deaths of 24-year-old model Christy Giles and 26-year-old Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola.
Five more people were arrested Thursday in connection with the death of Robert De Niro's grandson from a fentanyl overdose. Grant McIver, Bruce Epperson, Eddie Barreto, John Nicolas and Roy Nicolas were charged in Manhattan Federal Court with running a drug distribution network that led to the deaths of three 19-year-olds across two months in 2023. Two of the victims were De Niro's grandson, Leandro Anthony De Niro-Rodriguez, and Akira Stein, the daughter of Blondie guitarist and co-founder Chris Stein, the DEA said in a press release.
Four years after a stunning mishap where the SF Medical Examiner notified a family that their father had been declared dead, and then he turned up alive, the same man has, in fact, now died. It was exactly one year ago today when the Chronicle broke the story that a man who the SF Medical Examiner's Office had declared dead, and even sent his family the ashes, was actually still very much alive on the streets of San Francisco.
There is a dangerous myth that drug addiction only has a single victim - the drug addict. Sadly, today's new case and new charges demonstrate there are many victims, including those who never intentionally ingest an opioid.