SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 5, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — A 23-year-old Las Vegas man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday for selling fentanyl to a Park City man, resulting in a near fatal overdose.
It was almost Colin Andrew Shapard’s third drug overdose kill, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney for Utah on his sentencing in Salt Lake City’s federal court.
Shapard pleaded guilty in December to distribution of a controlled substance that resulted in serious bodily injury. Fentanyl Shapard shipped via U.S. Mail, nearly killed a Park City resident after the man overdosed in February of 2022, prosecutors said in the 5 p.m. press release.
In 2016 Shapard supplied a dangerous synthetic opioid to two 13-year-old middle-school students in Park City, who died as a result of ingesting the substance, according to the press release. He was charged in juvenile court for the two deaths as he was a juvenile at the time.
“Mr. Shapard continued to profit off numerous individuals with his fentanyl-laced pills even after being charged for the deaths of two teenagers in 2016,” said U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina A. Higgins.
Shapard not only knowingly sold dangerous synthetic opioids, but he did so while deceiving his customers about the nature of the product, Higgins said. “Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin.”
In the 2022 near-fatality, Higgins said had it not been for the quick response from the victim’s family and the fast acting first responders who administered Narcan “this would have been a more tragic outcome.
“My office will vigorously prosecute those who distribute this poison in the state of Utah, particularly those who repeat the same behavior.”
In detailing the multi-jurisdictional investigation of Shapard, the release said in December 2021, subsequent to a search warrant, investigators identified and seized two shipments of counterfeit blue M30 pills laced with fentanyl that were mailed from Las Vegas to Utah. Simultaneously, DEA agents also learned that same year U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized four illicit drug shipments addressed to Shapard from the Netherlands.
Additionally, in October 2020 customs enforcement agents in Germany seized two U.S. bound packages addressed to Shapard that contained illegal amphetamine-based drugs. Also in 2020, agents learned that Shapard received a FedEx package to a Midvale, Utah address that contained chemicals utilized in the manufacture of the drug GHB and/or fentanyl.
In 2022, undercover DEA agents purchased drugs from Shapard. He told the undercover agent that the “blues” he sold were legitimate pharmaceuticals that he acquired from Canada. “Shapard also claimed he tested every shipment of pills he received to confirm they did not contain fentanyl, when in fact they did.”
The case was part of a joint investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Park City Police Department, and the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
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