2nd man sentenced to prison for hauling 2.2M potentially lethal doses of fentanyl to Minnesota

A second Minneapolis man has received a term of at least 10 years in prison for his role in hauling massive quantities of fentanyl pills from California to Minnesota, enough to produce more than 2 million potentially lethal doses.

Savontray O.D. Collins, 23, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after pleading guilty to possession with intent to traffic in fentanyl and cocaine.

Co-defendant Cortez A. Williams, Collins’ cousin, also pleaded guilty to the same count and was sentenced in December to 11¼ years in prison.

After their release from prison, the cousins will be on supervised release for another five years.

According to the defendants’ plea agreements and other court documents:

Confidential informants described Williams as selling fentanyl pills in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, and said that he made regular trips to California to bring back between 50,000 to 150,000 pills each time. One informant told police that Williams repackaged the drugs he brought back and broke them into smaller quantities to sell while at the Minneapolis home of the mother of his child.

Law enforcement tried to stop Williams at the airport on Jan. 25, 2023, but he had returned on a flight earlier than expected. Investigators used phone location data to determine that Williams soon made another trip, this time by car, to California on Feb. 10, 2023.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers 1 kilogram of fentanyl to contain 500,000 potentially deadly doses. That would place the number of possibly lethal doses allegedly seized from Williams and Collins at about 2.2 million.

Williams, who was driving, provided vague answers about his travel, initially saying he had been in Arizona to watch the Super Bowl.

The defense proposed the statutory minimum of 10 years in prison for Collins, acknowledging in a court filing before sentencing that he had a difficult upbringing and “was given virtually unfettered freedom at a young age,” making it easy for him to experiment with drugs and quit school.

Collins was raised in “a crime-ridden neighborhood,” the filing continued, “and he was a frequent victim and witness to crime in his community. [He] has been assaulted, robbed and shot, and has witnessed several friends die from gun violence and drug overdoses.”

Since his arrest, Collins has entered a drug treatment program and has attended a criminal law class while taking an interest in the legal profession as a career, the defense pointed out.

Even so, prosecutors agreed that he should be given a 10-year term, and “one can only hope that this case will truly serve as the wake-up call that Mr. Collins needs.”