24-year-old North Texas drug dealer faces murder charge in fentanyl overdose, police say
A 24-year-old suspected drug dealer was arrested and will face a murder charge after he supplied fentanyl to a man who died of an overdose last year, Arlington police said.
Orion Otero was booked into the Tarrant County Jail on Saturday, Jan. 18, and is being held on $150,000 bond.
On March 16, 2024, officers responded to a rehab facility in the 1000 block of Wet N Wild Way, where a patient was found unresponsive, police said in a statement.
The patient, Logan Valetutto, 26, was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his cause of death as fentanyl toxicity.
After conducting a follow-up investigation using phone records and other digital evidence, detectives determined that Valetutto got the fentanyl from Otero, police said.
Police obtained a warrant for Otero’s arrest on one count of murder. Members of the U.S. Marshals North Texas Fugitive Task Force found Otero in Irving on Friday, Jan. 17, and took him into custody without incident, police said.
Texas legislators passed a law during the 2023 legislative session that allows law enforcement to charge dealers who supply fentanyl resulting in a death with murder.
Valetutto “had a free spirit and a love that had no boundaries,” his family wrote in his obituary. “He never judged and was filled with love for everyone around him.”