Detectives seize 12,000 fentanyl pills from alleged Deschutes County drug traffickers

Published 5:50 pm Thursday, April 13, 2023

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Three people are facing criminal charges in connection to what police describe as a drug trafficking operation that spanned communities across Deschutes County.

The investigation ended with the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Street Crimes Unit seizing approximately 12,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl.

“That’s an extraordinary amount,” Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp, of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, said of the seizure.

The long-term investigation ended in the arrests of William Warden Day III, 44, of Bend; Ricky Anthony Fontaine, 30, of Redmond; and Jessica Ann Estes, 29, of Redmond.

Law enforcement said the three worked together and know each other from alleged drug trafficking.

They have been charged by a Deschutes County grand jury with a variety of alleged felony drug crimes, according to indictments filed in the Deschutes County Circuit Court.

Detectives said they worked “in connection with an organization receiving fentanyl pills and powder from a source of supply in Mexico,” Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Wall said in a press release Thursday.

Wall could not confirm Thursday whether this organization was linked to a Mexican drug cartel.

After finding evidence of drug sales during its investigation, the street crimes unit searched areas in Redmond, Bend, Sunriver and Sisters, Wall said.

Read more: Fentanyl floods Central Oregon, claiming lives and alarming officials

Detectives stopped and arrested Day on March 31, and he had approximately 2,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills on him containing fentanyl, an ounce of powdered fentanyl and a 9 mm handgun, Wall said.

Detectives searched Day’s Sunriver home and located more fentanyl and evidence of drug sales, Wall said.

Wall couldn’t say precisely what the evidence of sales were, but Day’s indictment indicates this could include materials for packaging of controlled substances, such as scales, wrapping or foil, as well as drug transaction records or customer lists.

The day after detectives arrested Day, police arrested Fontaine and Estes in the Redmond area.

Wall said the two possessed “over ten thousand counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl, nearly two ounces of powdered fentanyl and a loaded handgun.” Fontaine has also been charged with possessing a gun as a felon, court records show. Wall said the two are a couple.

On April 8, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team searched the couple’s home on Faugarwee Circle in Deschutes River Woods and found more than 1,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and evidence of drug sales in their car and room, Wall said.

The three were booked in the Deschutes County jail.

The seizure was more than four times larger than the total number of fentanyl pills that the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team seized in all of 2021, highlighting the increasing amount of the illicit and potentially lethal drug that is flooding communities across the region and state.

Read more: Drug overdose deaths are soaring in Central Oregon, and fentanyl is largely to blame

“I would say this is a large seizure for a street crimes unit, but given what’s going on, I think we’re going to see more and more and more of this,” Wall said.

The Sunriver Police Department, Redmond Police Department Street Crimes Unit and the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team assisted in the investigation.

Fontaine, Day and Estes each have a history in the criminal justice system. Estes and Fontaine have each been convicted of felony drug crimes, and Fontaine has also been convicted of felony second-degree robbery, court records show.

Day has also been convicted of several driving, drug and theft misdemeanors, and one felony computer crime, according to court records.