‘Come to the dark side’: California inmate used lawyer in Alaska fentanyl empire, feds say
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Before he worked for what he allegedly called “the cartel,” Justin Facey’s law career was unremarkable.
Facey’s modest solo practice was based in a gray Anchorage office building, where he shared space with personal injury attorneys, a chiropractor and a financial advisor. His website advertised expertise in defending run-of-the-mill cases: DUI, domestic violence, theft, assault.
But in 2023, Facey took on a client who changed his firm’s fortunes — and brought him under the eye of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Agents were monitoring the phone of a California inmate who was suspected of trafficking huge amounts of drugs to Alaska when they read a text message that Facey allegedly sent to a fellow lawyer.
“Come to the dark side,” he wrote in the message, which was cited in court documents. “I just signed a lease on a HUGE new office space. Three attorney offices, plus a paralegal bullpen, reception area, etc.”
Prosecutors say Facey broke the law working for Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez, who has been serving a life sentence in California since 1998. Last week, Facey, 44, was charged with maintaining “drug-involved premises,” as well as possessing a shotgun, rifle and two handguns while selling meth and fentanyl.
From his prison cell in Monterey County, Sanchez, 58, used contraband cellphones to direct one of the largest drug trafficking organizations in Alaska history, federal authorities say. More than 60 people are accused of colluding with Sanchez to smuggle fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin from Southern California to Alaska, where the narcotics were sold at staggering markups.
Using contraband cellphones and women that he called his ‘wives,’ a California prisoner oversaw a sprawling drug ring that spread death and addiction to the most remote corners of Alaska, prosecutors say.
Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to charges that he trafficked drugs, laundered money and had two women kidnapped, murdered and buried in the Alaska wilderness.
Facey acted as consigliere to Sanchez and, after his law license was suspended in February, became a drug dealer himself, prosecutors wrote in a motion seeking to jail the attorney pending a trial.
“Obviously, the allegations are serious,” Facey’s lawyer, Nicolas Vieth, said in an interview.
Vieth said that he couldn’t respond to the charges because he had yet to review the prosecution’s evidence. His priority is getting Facey treatment for drug addiction and mental health issues, he said.
“He’s scared,” Vieth said of his client. “He’s depressed.”
According to prosecutors, Facey began working for Sanchez in June 2023, around the time that the DEA tapped the prisoner’s cellphone.
Agents intercepted text messages in which Facey and Sanchez talked about using a private plane to spirit away an underling who had narrowly avoided arrest in Anchorage, prosecutors wrote in the bail motion.
Facey said he knew a pilot who could fly her to Montana. “Let me contact my people to be ready to take her out the country,” Sanchez replied.
The attorney later thanked Sanchez for having a package of fentanyl delivered to his home, prosecutors wrote. “I feel funny not paying — we can credit it for when you need some legal work done, if you want?” Facey wrote in a text message.
The lawyer and prisoner also allegedly discussed using laundering drug profits. In a text message cited by prosecutors, Facey complimented Sanchez for using “girls” as a “little revenue laundromat.”
Sanchez is accused of ordering the murder of Sunday Powers, an Alaska woman who was caught at an airport carrying $20,000 of Sanchez’s money.
With Sanchez as a client, Facey bragged about his newfound wealth to “anyone in the Anchorage legal community who might listen,” prosecutors said in the bail motion.
In a text message, Facey allegedly wrote: “The cartel has retained my office for all their Alaska needs. So there’s guaranteed revenue, in cash, at the full hourly rate for the forseeable future.”
Facey said after he got a member of “the cartel” acquitted, “There was a knock on my door. Package sitting right there when I opened it. Inside was a watch manufactured by a very reputable purveyor of timepieces, two ounces of legit Bolivian flake and a brochure for the suite level at the Venetian.”
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Imprisoned in California since 1998, Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez is now accused of leading one of the largest drug trafficking networks in Alaska’s history.
Despite the boasts, Facey’s practice was collapsing. Clients filed 13 grievances and six payment disputes with the Alaska state bar about Facey, who had an ounce-a-day meth habit, prosecutors wrote in the motion to keep Facey jailed.
Facey also engaged in “compulsive sexual misconduct,” prosecutors wrote. An unnamed witness told authorities the lawyer was a “pig” and “disgusting slob” who extorted sex from her in exchange for legal representation, according to the motion to prevent his release.
After his license was suspended, Facey turned to selling drugs, according to prosecutors. By April, he told associates in text messages he was facing eviction. He posted in a public Facebook group for RV owners, writing, “Heya! I’m right in the middle of an unexpected, abrupt major life and career implosion, and I’ve decided to embrace the silver lining.”
He was thinking of selling everything he owned but his RV, he wrote. Accompanied by his daughter and granddaughter, he’d leave Alaska “with no specific plan in mind but to roam the earth for a bit,” he wrote, “until something or somewhere grabs our attention.”
Facey now sits in the Anchorage Correctional Complex after a judge tentatively denied him bail. His lawyer will argue for his release at a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday.
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