Man sentenced to 22 years in federal prison after being arrested with 83,000 fentanyl pills

A 32-year-old man was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison Wednesday after being arrested at a Spokane Valley motel in March 2023 with approximately 24 pounds of fentanyl.

Jordy Deboer was tearful as Judge Thomas O. Rice sentenced him. His family sobbed quietly from the gallery.

Deboer and his attorney, David Miller, told the court of his “horrific” childhood. His mother married numerous times, with each stepfather bringing a new form of abuse, Miller wrote in court documents.

He began using methamphetamine when he was 17, Deboer told the judge.

“I’ve had a very rough childhood,” he said.

He went to prison at 20 years old, and when he got out in 2015, he turned his life around, Deboer said. He met a woman at church, now his fiancée, and helped her raise her young daughter for the last decade while working in concrete.

Then the couple relapsed, he said.

“I fell down the wrong path,” Deboer said tearfully. “I thought I had control, but I lost it.”

In April 2022, Deboer was arrested while running drugs for a drug trafficking organization in the Tri-Cities. Federal law enforcement officers found more than a pound of methamphetamine, along with several thousand fentanyl-laced pills.

After being indicted in federal court, Deboer told the judge he wanted to get drug treatment while awaiting trial.

He was released to attend inpatient treatment, then transitioned into sober housing in Spokane, where he violated the terms of his release and was put back into federal custody, according to court records. In December 2022, he was released to treatment again.

Not long after, FBI agents learned Deboer had begun trafficking drugs again.

Deboer told the judge he wanted to change but didn’t realize how strong fentanyl and meth’s pull was on him.

In March 2023, a confidential informant did a drug buy of a half-pound of meth and 1,000 fentanyl pills. The man who dropped off the drugs for Deboer was Matthew Sailors, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the crimes.

Days later, law enforcement were about to search Deboer’s hotel room at a Spokane Valley Motel 6 when they ran into Deboer in the motel stairway.

He was arrested with nearly $12,000 in cash, a gun and pounds of drugs.

In January, he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine in connection to the 2022 arrest and possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl in connection to the 2023 arrest.

Prosecutors argued Deboer should be sentenced to just more than 24 years in prison, which is below the standard sentencing range of 30 years to life, taking into account his difficult childhood but also his repeat offenses, according to court records.

Deboer’s attorney argued he should be sentenced to 12 years in prison, which is slightly higher than his co-defendant. He argued the sentence being slightly harsher takes into account Deboer’s additional crime, but that the prosecutor’s recommendation was too harsh given his difficult childhood and desire to change.

Rice sentenced Deboer to 272 months in prison, or just more than 22 years.