A Reading man charged with supplying fentanyl-laced heroin that led to nine fatal overdoses in April 2022 is in Berks County Jail following his extradition from North Carolina, authorities said Thursday.
Jesus E. Martinez-Espinal, 37, of the 800 block of Schuylkill Avenue was jailed in lieu of $1 million bail to await a hearing on the charges following arraignment Wednesday night before District Judge Tonya A. Butler in Reading Central Court.
He faces nine counts of drug delivery resulting in death, along with multiple counts each of possessing and intending to deliver a controlled substance and conspiracy.
Martinez-Espinal had been in custody in Gaston County, N.C., before he was transported by members of the Berks County sheriff’s office for his arraignment, officials said.
Martinez-Espinal was charged by Reading police in September 2023 when two alleged co-conspirators were arrested, 16 months after the rash of fatal and nonfatal overdoses occurred during in early April 2022 in Berks.
Court records indicate Martinez-Espinal was declared a fugitive from justice in January 2024, following unsuccessful attempts to locate him.
Berks District Attorney John T. Adams said Martinez-Espinal was captured a few months ago but he didn’t have the details.
“He fought extradition,” Adams said Thursday. “We had to obtain a governor’s warrant, and he was returned on Wednesday.”
The fatally ingested drugs were all purchased on April 9, 2022, along the Ninth Street entrance to an apartment building in the 800 block of Penn Street, according to investigators.
A pathologist determined all of the victims died of acute toxicity of heroin and fentanyl. Some died in Reading Hospital. One woman was found dead in an apartment less than a half-block from where she bought the drugs earlier in the day.
The probable cause affidavit details how investigators used security camera video of suspected drug transactions — footage, in some cases, showing money exchanging hands — to determine the source of the lethal dose. Video evidence was supplemented with text messages recovered from the victims’ cellphones.
In the footage, Maritnez-Espinal, sometimes accompanied by one of the two co-defendants, is seen leaving the same apartment in the building and walking down a hallway to meet customers at the side entrance, then returning to the apartment, investigators said.
The co-defendants, Melanie Emerich, 44, and Jesus Santiago-Caceres, 26, who face similar charges, remain in Berks County Jail awaiting further proceedings in Berks County Court.