Man sentenced to prison for supplying fentanyl to Larimer County man’s fatal overdose

An Evans man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to supplying the fentanyl that led to the fatal overdose of a Lyons man last October.

Jason Wahlstrom, now 38, was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty to distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, a Class 1 drug felony, for supplying the fentanyl powder that killed Rudy Morriese, from Lyon, 27 years old.

In early October 2023, Larimer County Sheriff’s Office investigators responded to a home in Lyons after a woman called 911 to report her male relative was unresponsive, according to a news release from of the time of Morriese’s death. When first responders arrived, they found him dead.

According to the news release, first responders, which included Thompson Valley EMS and the Lyon Fire Department, found “evidence of illegal narcotics use at the scene.”

The Larimer County Coroner’s Office ruled the man’s death accidental as a result of fentanyl toxicity. The man was identified as Morriese by family members and the district attorney’s office during Wahlstrom’s sentencing hearing Monday.

Chief Judge Susan Blanco sentenced Wahlstrom to 20 years in the Department of Corrections after Assistant District Attorney Lynzi Maas requested a sentence of 20 to 22 years. Wahlstrom accepted a plea deal from the district attorney’s office that stipulated a sentence range of 10 to 22 years in prison.

Maas argued for a longer prison term because of Wahlstrom’s lengthy criminal history, which includes several drug and drug-related misdemeanors and multiple felony cases. Wahlstrom was on probation when he distributed fentanyl to Morriese in that case, Maas said.

Wahlstrom’s defense attorney, Katherine Rahme, asked the judge for a 12-year prison sentence. Rahme said this case has been a wake-up call for Wahlstrom, who also struggles with drug addiction.

“The facts of this case would not exist without Wahlstrom’s addiction at the center,” Rahme said.

Maas argued that this case was not about “Wahlstrom’s addiction … but about his willingness to engage in providing these drugs to other people.” Maas said text messages between the victim and Wahlstrom show it wasn’t the first time Wahlstrom provided drugs to Morriese.

Wahlstrom told the judge that, as a drug addict, he knows the pain of withdrawal, and he gave Morriese the fentanyl “to help another addict who was hurting.”

“I know I deserve to be punished,” Wahlstrom said.

Wahlstrom said he plans to finish college while in prison and become an addiction counselor to “prove that I can do better.”

Morriese’s mother told the judge that Wahlstrom’s remorse and remorse do not justify his role in Morriese’s death.

“We can’t get my son back,” she told the court.

Blanco said he believes Wahlstrom is remorseful and read letters from his family and friends vouching for his ability and desire for rehabilitation. But he said he also has to consider what he heard from Morriese’s family and friends about how devastating this loss has been for them.

“I see value in you,” Blanco told Wahlstrom, “but that’s an appropriate sentence under these circumstances.”

This article originally appeared in the Fort Collins Coloradoan: Man convicted of supplying fentanyl in Lyon man’s fatal overdose