El Dorado County man indicted for distributing drug that killed minor

Almost five years after a 15-year-old El Dorado High School student died after ingesting a designer drug, a Camino man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for his death.

Elijah Lee Richter, 26, is charged with knowingly and intentionally distributing 25i-nBOME, the drug that killed Alejandro Nunez Avila in a Pollock Pines home on on September 8, 2012.

Richter had been arrested at the time with Jesse Howard Roberts, then 21. Roberts has already convicted in the case and sentenced to six years. He currently is listed as being an inmate at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif.

El Dorado County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a medical call that day and found Avila unresponsive. He was transported to the hospital but later pronounced dead at Marshal Hospital in Placerville.

Richter faces a maximum statutory penalty of life in prison, a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison, and a $10 million fine.

This case is the product of an investigation by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department, El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, and the Drug Enforcement Administration as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). The OCDETF Program was established in 1982 to conduct comprehensive, multilevel attacks on major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply. Assistant United States Attorneys Jason Hitt and Paul Hemesath are prosecuting the case.