{"id":159362,"date":"2026-02-01T19:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159362\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:03:09","slug":"long-beach-man-found-guilty-of-selling-fentanyl-laced-cocaine-in-the-fatal-overdose-of-engaged-couple-in-orange-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159362\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Man Found Guilty of Selling Fentanyl-Laced Cocaine in the Fatal Overdose of Engaged Couple in Orange County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>February 1, 2026 \u2013 LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013 A Long Beach man was found guilty by a jury on Friday of distributing <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: left;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/US-DOJ.jpg\" alt=\"US DOJ\"\/>fentanyl-laced cocaine that resulted in the overdose deaths on the same day in Orange County of two victims who were engaged to be married.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Johnson, 43, a.k.a. \u201cStephen Jo,\u201d of Long Beach, was found guilty of two counts of distribution of fentanyl resulting in death and two counts of distribution of cocaine.<\/p>\n<p>According to evidence presented at a four-day trial, the victims paid Johnson $240 on the night of May 24, 2023, and in exchange he twice gave them cocaine. The victims then attended a concert in West Hollywood before returning to Johnson\u2019s residence at approximately 3:00 a.m. on May 25, 2023, to pick up the remainder of their cocaine \u2013 which contained fentanyl.<\/p>\n<p>The victims then returned to their residence in Brea, where they consumed the narcotics and suffered fatal overdoses.<\/p>\n<p>United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson scheduled an April 20 sentencing hearing, at which time Johnson will face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI and the Brea Police Department investigated this matter.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant United States Attorneys Kevin Y. Fu of the Orange County Office, Christopher R. Jones, Christina R.B. L\u00f3pez, and William Kanellis of the General Crimes Section are prosecuting this matter.<\/p>\n<p>Source: DOJ Release <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"February 1, 2026 \u2013 LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013 A Long Beach man was found guilty by a jury&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,77608,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-159362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-man-found-guilty-of-selling-fentanyl-laced-cocaine-in-the-fatal-overdose-of-engaged-couple-in-orange-county","11":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}