CLEVELAND, Ohio— A Cleveland man is accused of selling drugs cut with fentanyl that led to three people’s overdose deaths.
Reyes Sanchez-Borrero, also known as Luda, is charged in federal court in Cleveland with three counts of distributing controlled substances and one count of possessing a gun with a felony record.
Sanchez-Borrero, 37, on Thursday was ordered held in custody until further proceedings. The case was sent to a federal grand jury that will decide how the case proceeds, including whether to add sentencing enhancements for the three deaths.
He is on probation after he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in which he and two others beat a man in 2006. The man died in 2019, and county prosecutors brought new charges based on the death.
Records show that Sanchez-Borrero’s drugs killed Mary Lou Garay, 50, Cleveland and Jose Hernandez, 52, of North Olmsted in the span of two days in May. Robert French, 31, of Cleveland died of a suspected overdose in July, according to court filings.
Investigators pieced the case together by reviewing cellphone location data, combing through text messages on at least five phones, DNA testing and a raid on Sanchez-Borrero’s home that turned up $30,000 in suspected drug money and two guns.
Cleveland police first found Garay dead May 5 at a home on West 94th Street, near Sanchez-Borerro’s home. She was found in an upstairs bedroom with her back against the wall and suspected drugs tucked in her bra.
Text messages showed she bought $40 worth of cocaine from Sanchez-Borrero the day before, according to court filings. The day she was found, Sanchez-Borrero, who did not know that Garay had died, texted her: “Is that stuff better than the last stuff…?...?”
The next day, officers found Hernandez dead inside a home on East 36th Street. A roommate found his body on a couch. Investigators found crack cocaine cut with fentanyl on a chair next to him.
Investigators found text messages that showed Hernandez bought $20 worth of crack from Sanchez-Borrero on May 4.
Cleveland police and agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raided Sanchez-Borrero’s home on May 9. They seized the weapons, cash and a bullet-proof vest, court records say.
Sanchez-Borrero told investigators the gun was left in the home when he bought it and that he wasn’t selling drugs, only using them.
He also said he doesn’t do anything with fentanyl, despite investigators never mentioning the drug, according to court records. He told investigators that he tests cocaine he gets for fentanyl.
Prosecutors charged Sanchez-Borrero with two counts of possessing weapons with a felony record in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in May. He was released after posting 10 percent of a $20,000 bond.
He continued selling drugs while on court-monitored supervision, according to court records. Sanchez-Borrero in text messages told Fisher to throw away the drugs he sold him after the others died.
But he sold Fisher a heroin-fentanyl mix on July 19 in exchange for Fisher’s computer, according to court records. Sanchez-Borrero told Fisher in a text that he had “$12 left to his name” after paying his attorney. He later instructed Fisher to erase their text messages from his phone.
A family friend found Fisher dead on his bed in an apartment on West 32nd Street two days later. Family members hadn’t heard from him for two days, according to court records.
Sanchez-Borrero in May was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Homobono Medina.
In that case, he and three others were accused of attacking Medina during a robbery in 2006. Medina initially survived the attack, and Sanchez-Borrero pleaded no contest to attempted murder and aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Medina died in December 2019. Cuyahoga County prosecutors charged the trio again with Medina’s death.
Sanchez-Borrero pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced to five years of probation. The sentence included a stipulation that if Sanchez-Borrero violated the terms of probation, he’d be sentenced to at least and additional four years in prison, court records say.
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