A Lake Worth man has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for distributing fentanyl and oxycodone to a minor in West Palm Beach, resulting in the girl's fatal overdose. U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks imposed the sentence on Roberto Andres-Tomas, 26, of Lake Worth, Florida, after he pleaded guilty to distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida announced on October 27, 2026. The victim is not named in court announcements, and Awaaz Punjab does not identify minor victims.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of Florida
The sentence was announced jointly by U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Miles Aley of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Miami Field Division, whose agency investigated the case together with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. The DEA published its own announcement of the same sentence on October 27.
Source: Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
December 12, 2025: the messages, the meeting, and the evidence
According to court records cited by prosecutors, on December 12, 2025, Andres-Tomas communicated with the minor victim by text message and arranged to provide her with narcotics in exchange for a sexual act. Andres-Tomas travelled to the victim's residence in West Palm Beach and met with her that evening, prosecutors said.
Investigators corroborated the encounter through four kinds of evidence named in the announcement: the text messages themselves, GPS-related evidence, surveillance footage, and DNA evidence. The following day, the minor victim was found deceased from an apparent overdose.
Laboratory testing confirmed that narcotics recovered near the victim contained fentanyl. The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner subsequently determined that the victim died from acute fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication — the finding that tied the death directly to the two drugs named in the charge to which Andres-Tomas pleaded guilty.
"A young girl lost her life because Roberto Andres-Tomas supplied her with deadly drugs in exchange for a sexual act," said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones. "He exploited a minor, delivered fentanyl and oxycodone, and left behind a grieving family facing an unimaginable loss. No prison sentence can bring this child back, but 25 years in federal prison delivers a measure of justice and sends a clear message: those who prey on our children and fuel the deadly fentanyl crisis will face severe consequences."
The agencies behind the case
The case was investigated by the DEA's Miami Field Division and its West Palm Beach District Office, together with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Suzanne Huyler prosecuted the case. Court documents in the case are held by the District Court for the Southern District of Florida under case number 26-cr-80041, according to the announcement.
Background: fentanyl, counterfeit supply, and a national toll that is falling but still enormous
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid so potent that the amount recovered near a victim can be small in weight and still lethal, which is why a medical examiner's finding of acute fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication — two opioids together — is treated by prosecutors as the central forensic fact in a distribution-resulting-in-death case. Nationally, provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures reported this year estimate 69,973 U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2025, down from 81,313 in 2024, with deaths involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl falling about 22 percent, from 48,913 to 38,084. Officials presenting those figures stress that synthetic opioids remain the main driver of overdose deaths even as the total declines.
Source: CDC provisional data, as reported in 2026
For families in Palm Beach County — including the Punjabi and South Asian families who live and work across the Lake Worth and West Palm Beach area, and the drivers who pass through it daily on South Florida roads — the case underlines a risk that health officials repeat often: drugs obtained outside a pharmacy, including pills that look like prescription oxycodone, may contain fentanyl in an amount the user cannot see, taste or judge. In this case, prosecutors say, the person who supplied those drugs to a minor has now been held criminally responsible for her death.
What happens next is the sentence itself. Andres-Tomas, who pleaded guilty rather than going to trial, now faces the 25-year federal prison term imposed by Judge Middlebrooks. The announcement records no further hearing in the case; its closing note is the one the U.S. Attorney himself gave — that no sentence can return the victim to her family, and that the term is intended as both justice in this case and a warning in others like it.