A 21-year-old who ran a fentanyl manufacturing and distribution hub out of his home in Gladstone, Oregon, has been sentenced to 17 and a half years in federal prison for supplying the drug that killed a 30-year-old Milwaukie father in September 2023.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, District of Oregon
Cristhian Martinez, a Honduran national who was living in the United States unlawfully, received the 210-month sentence in federal court in Portland, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon announced on Monday, November 2. The prison term will be followed by five years of supervised release.
How investigators built the case
According to court documents cited by the Justice Department, Martinez was part of a conspiracy that operated a fentanyl manufacturing and distribution hub from his residence in Gladstone, a city in Clackamas County just south of Portland. On November 16, 2023, investigators stopped him as he was driving back from California and found more than a kilogram of fentanyl in his vehicle.
A federal search warrant at his Gladstone residence the same day led officers to additional fentanyl powder and counterfeit pills, a pill-press operation, cutting agents, thousands of dollars in cash and nine firearms, prosecutors said. Earlier court filings in the case described a 20-ton shop press used to produce compressed fentanyl “bricks” and said a police dog alerted on the vehicle during the stop.
The chain that ended in a Milwaukie death
As part of his plea agreement, Martinez admitted supplying fentanyl to another dealer, who later sold the drug to the victim. The 30-year-old Milwaukie man consumed it and died on September 26, 2023, of acute fentanyl toxicity. At the sentencing hearing, loved ones described him as a loving and devoted father, fiancé, son and coworker, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
“The defendant came to this country illegally and chose to profit from poisoning our communities,” said U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford. “His actions cost a young father his life, and today's sentence reflects the seriousness of that choice. This office will continue to pursue significant penalties for those who violate our immigration laws and traffic fentanyl into our communities.”
The scale of the trafficking
The dealer who bought fentanyl from Martinez and then sold it to the victim told investigators he had purchased between 30 and 50 pounds of fentanyl powder and more than 100,000 counterfeit pills from Martinez over an 18-month period. The Justice Department noted that 30 pounds of fentanyl is equivalent to an estimated 6.8 million potentially lethal doses.
Martinez was stopped driving north from California into Oregon — the Interstate 5 corridor that carries the West Coast's heaviest truck freight through the Central Valley, Sacramento and Portland. Federal drug cases in Oregon repeatedly trace fentanyl supply runs to that same California-to-Oregon drive.
Background: the plea and the court process
Martinez pleaded guilty on May 6, 2026, to conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, and to being an alien in possession of a firearm (case no. 3:23-cr-00401-SI). At the plea stage he faced a maximum of life in prison and a $10 million fine, and prosecutors said they would seek exactly 210 months — the sentence the court has now imposed. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott M. Kerin prosecuted the case, with investigative support from the Clackamas County Interagency Task Force, the Washington County Interagency Narcotics (WIN) Team and the FBI.
The case was handled under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative created by Executive Order 14159. The Portland task force brings together the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, the ATF, the Postal Inspection Service, Customs and Border Protection, the TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard and Oregon National Guard counterdrug teams, with prosecutions led by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
What happens next
The dealer who sold the fentanyl directly to the victim has also been charged, and his case is still pending, prosecutors said — so at least one more court outcome is expected in this chain. Martinez will serve his 210 months in federal prison and then face five years of supervised release. For families in the Portland metro — including the region's Punjabi community in the Portland and Vancouver suburbs — the case is a reminder that counterfeit pills sold as oxycodone remain the deadliest face of the fentanyl trade: a single pill can carry a lethal dose, and federal prosecutors in Oregon say they will keep seeking long sentences where a sale ends in a death.