SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 10, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — A man arrested in California made his initial Utah court appearance Thursday for a case involving an overdose death.
John Ngo faces a federal charge related to the distribution of fentanyl. The officer who filed the probable cause statement, a member of the Davis Metro Narcotics Strike Force and the Layton Police Department, wrote that on July 20 of last year, he responded to Layton residence and found a victim (A.P.) deceased, with drugs and a syringe nearby. Also found were stickers for a company called Prosper, allegedly owned by a relative of Ngo.
Officers observed text messages on the A.P.’s phone between him and Ngo, with Ngo asking if the victim had tried the oxycodone yet. The victim responded that he had.
“A further search of A.P.’s phone indicated the coordination of several narcotics
purchases with the user of NGO’s phone in the weeks leading up to A.P.’s death,” the probable cause statement says.
“In an autopsy of A.P.’s body, the Utah State Medical Examiner found that A.P. died from ‘drug toxicity: fentanyl.'”
An undercover officer (UC) arranged to purchase narcotics from Ngo, sending money to a JP Morgan Chase bank account in the name of Ngo and his mother. When the drug package arrived, it had a return address for the company Prosper.
“As with the counterfeit oxycodone found near A.P.’s body, a lab analysis confirmed that the counterfeit oxycodone purchased by the UC also contained fentanyl,” the statement says.
Ngo’s next Utah court date has not yet been set.
