Log in
My Account
Subscribe 99¢ for 3 months
Newsletter

Today's Digital Newspaper

The Gazette

Weather Block Here

Login
My Account
Subscribe
Newsletter

Archive Information

Carrier Portal

Search

Buy Our Photos

Man convicted in Denver for producing “millions” of fentanyl pills

By Sage Kelley February 5, 2025 | updated 6 months ago

Tashon Roberts

Tashon Roberts was convicted of four drug-related charges and three counts of child abuse in Denver after a 2024 search warrant found that he was producing over 600,000 pills of fentanyl a month in the Denver metro.

Courtesy of the Denver District Attorney's Office

A Denver District jury convicted a 33-year-old man who was running a drug operation out of Aurora that produced “millions of individual fentanyl pills,” the Denver District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.

Tashon Roberts was convicted on four charges related to the manufacture, possession and distribution of fentanyl, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office, in connection to a drug ring that operated between January and August 2024.

Roberts was also convicted of three counts of child abuse — exposure to the manufacturing of a controlled substance — one count of tampering with physical evidence and three drug offender sentence enhancements.

Denver’s narcotics unit began investigating the alleged operation in early 2024. After several months, the Denver police, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration launched a joint operation and obtained a search warrant for a home in Aurora on May 1, 2024, according to a previous news release.

When officers searched the home located in the 1800 block of South Olathe Street in Aurora, they found five pill-making presses, other pill-related equipment, suspected fentanyl and other narcotics and firearms, authorities said.

Three children, all 4 years old or younger, were also found within the home. One later tested positive for fentanyl  exposure. 

Over nine weeks, detectives and crime laboratory personnel continued forensic examination of recovered evidence, eventually leading to the arrest of 33-year-old Roberts, 34-year-old Coleman Phillips and 28-year-old Imani Hale.

The operation was producing nearly 600,000 fentanyl pills per month and distributing them across the metro from two different Aurora homes, according to the district attorney’s office.

“Addressing the ongoing fentanyl crisis is a top priority for the DA’s office – and a critical part of our response is targeted investigation and enforcement aimed at high-level drug dealers like Tashon Roberts,” District Attorney John Walsh said in the release. “This case sends the clear message that people who traffic in this deadly drug in Denver will be caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Roberts is set to be sentenced April 11 and could face more than 100 years in prison.

Phillips pleaded guilty to one count of possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl and is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday and Hale is scheduled for a hearing March 6. 

e1a4a8e6-e400-11ef-a24d-9b6da34e63fc

View Original Article | Split View
Sage Kelley

Reporter

PREV

PREVIOUS

Colorado lawmakers to weigh in on transparency and privacy in student-athlete contracts

On Thursday, the House Education Committee will take another look at a bill intended to hide from the public information on the money paid by public colleges and universities to their student-athletes for use of the athlete’s name, image and likeness (NIL). It’s a growing issue within college athletics, with student-athletes who perform well on […]

NEXT

NEXT UP

State Senate at odds over CBI spending authority for rape kit backlog

The Joint Budget Committee suffered a rare loss Wednesday, when state Senate Democrats overruled them on spending authority for the Department of Public Safety. The issue: the ability of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to retest DNA, including for rape kits, tied to its former forensic scientist, Yvonne “Missy” Woods. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation last […]