CEDAR CITY — Four people, including one juvenile, were taken into custody on Sunday after Garfield County Sheriff’s deputies reportedly found approximately 9,000 fentanyl pills inside their vehicle.
Booked into Garfield County Jail in Panguitch on Sunday afternoon were Jose-Arturo Rubio Casillas, 23, and Jose Fortino Preston, 24. Both men face multiple charges, including possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a first-degree felony; misdemeanor counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and reckless endangerment; and disorderly conduct, an infraction.
Additionally, Preston faces one count of failure to stop at command of law enforcement, a class A misdemeanor, while Casillas faces one count of possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, a third-degree felony.
Preliminary details about the incident and arrests were posted later on Sunday on the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page. Then, on Monday, probable cause statements were filed in 6th District Court in support of the charges against Preston and Casillas.
A 21-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl who had been traveling with Preston and Casillas were also taken into custody on Sunday.
The woman, identified in the charging documents as Emilianna Rosa Sesma-Lopez, was taken to Garfield Memorial Hospital in Panguitch for treatment for some type of illness or infection.
“She’ll eventually be charged, but she had some serious health conditions,” Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins told Cedar City News on Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the 12-year-old girl was taken to Richfield, where she is now in the care of the juvenile detention facility’s shelter, Perkins added.
The incident unfolded at approximately 11:30 a.m. Sunday, when Garfield County Sheriff’s Office received a call reporting a disturbance at the Thunder Mountain trailhead near mile marker 2 on state Route 12. The location is in the Red Canyon area, several miles southeast of Panguitch.
Deputies arrived to find two men trying to push-start a red Cadillac in the parking lot, the charging documents state. Meanwhile, the two female occupants who had been in the car were in a restroom about 50 yards away when the deputies first came on scene.
After initially finding a small amount of fentanyl inside the vehicle, the responding deputies then found eight full bags of blue fentanyl pills inside the trunk, with each bag containing approximately 1,000 pills.
Perkins said later that one additional bag had been opened, with some of its contents having been transferred to a metal container, making the estimated total number of pills in excess of 9,000.
The seized drugs have an estimated street value of more than $250,000, the sheriff’s office said.
The charging documents allege that Casillas also had a handgun in his possession.
“He didn’t want to be arrested, so they had to take him down,” Perkins said. “Come to find out, he had a loaded gun in his pocket. That’s scary.”
Perkins said it was fortunate that there happened to be two deputies in the patrol vehicle that responded.
“Luckily, there were two of them in the vehicle,” he said. “I think that helps, you know, when you go up with guys who’ve got a gun in their pocket.”
This report is based on statements from court documents and law enforcement officials and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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