A Hyattsville man is facing up to 10 years in prison for his role in the October 2023 overdose death of a 17-year-old Chevy Chase boy, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Cesar Alexander Lopez, 24, of Hyattsville, pleaded guilty Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the death of Aiden Vining, the state’s attorney’s office said in the statement.
Lopez faces up to 10 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced in February, the statement said. Attorney information for Lopez could not be determined Saturday in state online court records.
According to the statement, a family member trying to wake Vining for school found him unresponsive in his bedroom on Oct. 24, 2023.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service crews attempted lifesaving measures, but Vining was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers then found “a straw with white residue … and a round blue pill labelled ‘M 30’ in Vining’s wallet,” the statement said.
Pills of this type are often referred to as “Percocet, percs, erks or 30s on the street,” according to the statement.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore performed an autopsy, ruling that Vining died of cocaine and fentanyl intoxication.
Lopez was arrested after a county police investigation found phone messages between Lopez and Vining on Oct. 23, 2023, that indicated Lopez arranged to sell the teen 10 “percs,” according to the statement. The investigation also revealed that Vining had bought cocaine from Lopez three days prior to his death.
“We are experiencing heartbreaking loss in our community due to fentanyl overdoses. We must continue to work on educating our youth, in particular, about the dangers of street-level drugs,” State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in the statement. The Drug Enforcement Agency “tells us seven out of every 10 pills seized contain a lethal dose of fentanyl,” he said.
According to Maryland Department of Health data, drug overdose deaths are down in the county, but fentanyl remains the leading cause of overdoses.
From January through September 2024, there were 57 overdose deaths in the county, according to the data presented by local health officials to the County Council in October. Thirty-five of those deaths were related to fentanyl. All the overdose deaths were of men and none involved anyone under the age of 25.
While the year isn’t over, the data shows a decline from 2023, which saw 130 overdose deaths. There also have been fewer calls for emergency medical services (EMS) for overdoses and the administration of Naloxone, an overdose reversal drug.
In 2023, 73% of all overdose deaths in the county involved fentanyl, according to state data. While this is a slight decline from 2021, in which fentanyl accounted for 79% of overdose deaths, it still shows an upward trend. For comparison, in 2015, just 24% of overdose deaths involved fentanyl.
