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SALT LAKE CITY — A Nevada man who was charged as a 15-year-old with distributing drugs in the overdose deaths of two 13-year-olds in Park City in 2016 is now accused of continuing to distribute fentanyl in Utah, which caused at least one new overdose in Summit County last month.
Colin Andrew Shapard, 21, of Las Vegas, was charged in U.S. District Court Friday with distributing a controlled substance that resulted in serious bodily injury and five counts of distributing a controlled substance, according to a statement from the Utah U.S. Attorney's Office.
Charging documents allege that Shapard would send shipments of opioids through the mail from Las Vegas to Park City. Police say Shapard would send pills stamped as fake 30 milligrams of oxycodone — also known as "M30" pills due to the dosage amount and an "M" stamped into the pills — to a middleman in Park City. Shapard allegedly promised kickbacks to the person who sold the drugs on his behalf.
Investigators spoke with the person acting as the middleman, who said that Shapard shipped drugs through UPS and Uber Eats to the middleman's residence, the charges state. Shapard is accused of using encrypted apps to set up drug shipments.
In addition to his current charges, a separate court filing indicates that Shapard was previously charged as a juvenile in connection with the overdose deaths of two 13-year-old Treasure Mountain Middle School students — Grant Seaver and his friend Ryan Ainsworth — who overdosed within 48 hours of each other on an opiate known as "pinky" back in 2016.
In a motion filed Wednesday for Shapard to be held in jail until his case is resolved, prosecutors say Shapard was selling drugs in schools in the Park City area. The court filing also alleges Shapard was able to get access to drugs by accessing darknet marketplaces, such as AlphaBay, in 2016. He allegedly set up two cryptocurrency wallets in order to make purchases through the darknet. Prosecutors also say Shapard's father flew him out of Utah to Hawaii as investigators closed in.
However, Shapard faced felony charges in juvenile court for the deaths, according to the court filing. The felonies were ultimately dropped and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge and was sentenced to probation, the court filing says.
After he became an adult, Shapard enrolled as a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Charging documents say the drugs shipped to Utah were mailed through the UNLV post office location.
In the latest case, as investigators began to pay attention to Shapard, they allege he tried to send a shipment of blue M30 pills from Las Vegas to Park City. The package, which was intercepted by postal inspectors, contained 35 fake M30 oxycodone pills which tested positive for fentanyl, according to the charges. The court documents include photographs of post office surveillance cameras of the person who shipped the pills from Las Vegas, and investigators allege it's Shapard.
On Dec. 20, postal inspectors intercepted another package shipped from Las Vegas to Tooele. The package, which listed the sender as Shapard, contained a bottle with 25 blue M30 pills that tested positive for fentanyl, the charges say. The bottle also contained 100 unknown green pills with markings similar to Xanax pills, in addition to other orange and white pills, according to investigators. Again, police took post office surveillance photographs of the person who mailed the package from Las Vegas, which authorities allege to be Shapard.
That same month, an undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration contacted Shapard to purchase pills. On Jan. 31, cameras at a U.S. Post Office in Las Vegas showed Shapard mailing the requested pills to the undercover DEA agent, according to charging documents. On Feb. 4, a postal inspector informed investigators that the shipment had arrived, and the pills inside the package later tested positive for fentanyl.
On Feb. 10, paramedics in Park City were called to a home where they found an 18-year-old man unresponsive. Paramedics found a weak pulse and started CPR before giving the man naloxone, which counteracts the effects of opioids and is used to stop overdoses. The man then "became alert and vomited" before he was sent to a hospital, charging documents say.
Police later interviewed the man, and he allegedly told investigators that he took an M30 pill that he ordered from Shapard. The man showed police the messages he exchanged with Shapard, and he gave police the shipping information used for the pills, the charges state. Post office surveillance cameras allegedly showed that Shapard sent the package from a post office in Las Vegas.
On Feb. 22, Shepard is accused of selling fake oxycodone pills to the undercover DEA officer again. When the package was intercepted by postal inspectors, investigators say there were 15 M30 pills, which tested positive for fentanyl, found inside a sealed Advil bottle.
Charging documents allege that Shapard sent a message to the undercover agent to see if the package had arrived. When the agent did not respond over a weekend, "Shapard appeared to have become worried." When the agent responded, Shapard expressed his relief, saying, "Just wanted to check in and make sure you weren't dead, as (it's) never a good sign when someone goes MIA after getting a ... ton of opiates," according to a photo of the messages included in charging documents.
As of Thursday, Shapard was being held at the Salt Lake County Jail without bail. A detention hearing is scheduled in federal court on March 24.
