A former Camp Pendleton Marine pleaded guilty last week to a felony drug offense for his actions involving a 2020 fentanyl transaction that resulted in the death of another U.S. Marine.
Anthony Ruben Whisenant, 24, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles to the use of a communication facility — a cellphone — in committing a felony drug offense, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee is scheduled to sentence Whisenant on May 7, at which time he will face up to four years in federal prison.
According to court documents, in May 2020, Whisenant was an active-duty lance corporal stationed at Camp Pendleton when he ordered pills marketed as oxycodone — but which actually contained fentanyl — for a fellow Marine, identified in court papers as L.M.
Whisenant contacted the drug dealer, Gustavo Jaciel Solis, 28, based on an advertisement Solis shared via his Snapchat account, according to court documents. L.M. drove Whisenant and another Marine, Ryan Douglas White, 27, from Camp Pendleton to collect the drugs from Solis later that same day, federal prosecutors said.
The three Marines then drove to a party in Compton, where L.M. ingested some of the pills purchased from Solis and died shortly after. At the direction of Whisenant, White flushed the remaining pills down a toilet before first responders arrived, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Solis was charged in 2020, along with Whisenant and two other civilian co-conspirators, with being part of a drug ring that distributed narcotics to civilians and members of the Marine Corps, and White was charged as an accessory after the fact.
Solis was arrested in July 2020, at which time investigators seized narcotics and several firearms — including a 9mm “ghost gun” — from his residence. Solis pleaded guilty in April 2022 to two federal drug trafficking offenses: participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy and distributing fentanyl resulting in death. His sentencing is pending, and he faces a maximum sentence of life, court papers show.
White pleaded guilty in December to one count of misprision of a felony for his knowledge of the fatal drug transaction and his attempts to hinder law enforcement’s investigation. His sentencing is scheduled for June 6, at which time he will face a maximum sentence of three years, according to prosecutors.
A superseding indictment filed in September 2020 named two other defendants: Jordan Nicholas McCormick, 29, of Palmdale, and Jessica Sarah Perez, 25, of Pacoima. McCormick allegedly supplied LSD, ecstasy, cocaine and oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl to co-conspirators.
McCormick has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial on April 22. Perez distributed narcotics including fentanyl and cocaine to the conspiracy’s civilian customers. She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and was sentenced in September 2022 to pay a $100 fine and placed on probation for two years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.