A Redondo Beach man, Marcus Michael Takaya Poydras, aged 36, has entered a guilty plea for the distribution of fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone pills, which led to a fatal overdose in January 2020. He is facing at least 20 years in federal prison, per a statement released today by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
Under the terms of his plea agreement, Poydras admitted to distributing about 90 fentanyl-laden pills to a dealer, who then sold them to the victim, and Poydras deceitfully claimed they were oxycodone and went as far as to send a photo of the pills purporting their authenticity.
The victim purchased 20 of these pills from the dealer for $340 in the parking lot of a Marina del Rey mall, and after ingesting some of them, unfortunately suffered a deadly overdose.
In an additional turn of events, during his guilty plea, Poydras confessed to possessing with the intent to distribute various narcotics, including cocaine, in July 2020. He was found with a .38-caliber revolver with an obliterated serial number, which he got from an LA County Sheriff's Department law enforcement technician, Melvin Ramon Washington, who was also a drug customer of Poydras. This led to a deferred prosecution agreement for Washington in January 2025, where the technician admitted to giving Poydras the gun and lying to DEA agents, as confirmed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), along with the assistance of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD), and the Redondo Beach Police Department have been investigating the matter, which is a part of the DEA's Overdose Justice Task Force initiative aimed at responding to opioid-related fatalities in the Los Angeles area.
U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer has scheduled Poydras's sentencing for September 8, and he faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years to a maximum of life in prison. Poydras has remained in federal custody since September 2021, awaiting the forthcoming hearing.
