Santa Barbara County man sentenced to 20 years in fentanyl death case

July 12, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

A 32-year-old Santa Barbara County man was sentenced today to 20 years in federal prison for aiding and abetting the distribution of fentanyl that led to the death of a fellow inmate at a Santa Barbara County jail and the serious bodily injury of another inmate.

In Oct. 2022, Wendel smuggled fentanyl into the Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail. He packaged the powerful synthetic opioid in candy containers.

As the new inmate, Wendel handed some fentanyl to his co-defendant, Michael Villapania, 36, of Lompoc, in the expectation that he would receive jail commissary goods in exchange. Villapania then sold the drug to a victim identified in court documents as “J.V.” J.V. then shared the fentanyl with another victim, who is identified in court documents as “E.E.”

After taking the drug during the early morning hours of Oct. 20, 2022, E.E. and J.V. overdosed. After an inmate alerted a custody deputy about the overdose, deputies and nurses administered multiple doses of Narcan – a life-saving medication used to reverse opioid overdoses – and performed CPR on both inmates. They revived J.V., but E.E. died.

Villapania pleaded guilty on Feb, 1 to one count of distribution of fentanyl. He was sentenced on June 10 to seven years in federal prison.

At the conclusion of a five-day trial, a jury on March 1 a jury found Kaelen Jacobkeali Wendel guilty of one count of distribution of fentanyl resulting in death and serious bodily injury.

“Wendel committed a serious offense that ended in a tragedy,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “He smuggled fentanyl into a jail unit, killing E.E. and nearly killing J.V. He created a market for fentanyl where there was none.”