Mistaken delivery of thousands of pills leads to prison sentence

A Stafford man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for an incident last year in which more than 16,000 fentanyl pills intended for him were mistakenly delivered to the wrong address.

The verdict against 27-year-old Dwaine Tyrone Jones Jr. was handed down by the U.S. District Court in Richmond, where he was convicted of possession of fentanyl with the intent to resell.

According to police and court records, a local resident called the Stafford Sheriff's Office on Oct. 2 of last year after receiving a package containing thousands of pills. The pills turned out to be counterfeit blue oxycodone pills laced with real fentanyl and stamped “M30.”

After identifying Jones as the intended recipient, agents executed a search warrant at a home on Torbert Loop in Stafford, where Jones lived with his girlfriend and her parents. During that search, federal agents seized more than 20,000 more blue M30 pills laced with fentanyl, along with 40.5 grams of cocaine, $47,770 in cash, a scale, a half-pound of marijuana and a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The total weight of the fentanyl pills was just over 2,137 grams, according to court records.

Jones' case began in Stafford court, where charges were later dropped and the case turned over to federal authorities for prosecution.