A San Bernardino woman has been sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison — a harsher penalty than what prosecutors and probation officials recommended — for the fentanyl-related deaths of a Redlands couple in 2020.
Breanna Daeyshanee Kuyre Garcia, 30, was sentenced Monday, Oct. 26, to 210 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II in Los Angeles, said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Under her plea agreement, Garcia admitted to distributing fentanyl-laced cocaine that killed Jessica Filson, 29, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Castillo, 30, in January 2020.
Federal prosecutors recommended 14 years in prison, while the U.S. Probation Office recommended 10 years. Garcia’s attorney, Robert Bernstein, sought a 12-year sentence.
Wright, however, imposed a harsher sentence than any had recommended, sentencing Garcia to 17½ years in prison — the maximum allowed under federal sentencing guidelines.
In victim impact statements obtained by the Southern California News Group following Monday’s hearing, Filson’s parents, Steve and Cheri Filson of Highland, described the devastating loss of their only daughter and urged the court to recognize the lasting impacts of Garcia’s crimes.
Steve Filson, a retired San Bernardino police sergeant who became an advocate for families affected by fentanyl poisoning and active in fentanyl awareness and education, urged Wright to impose a sentence substantially longer than 12 years, arguing that Garcia’s guilty plea and limited criminal history did not diminish the seriousness of her crimes.
“A guilty plea does not restore the lives taken. An expression of remorse does not reduce the number of people who died,” he wrote in his impact statement. “A sentence substantially greater than twelve years would reflect the seriousness of this offense and the need to deter others from committing it.”
A federal grand jury indicted Garcia in October 2024 on two felony counts of distributing fentanyl-laced cocaine that killed Filson and Castillo at their Michigan Street home in Redlands. Garcia was arrested in Texas on Nov. 1, 2024, and extradited to Los Angeles, where she initially pleaded not guilty.
Co-defendant Jason Saha, 40, of San Bernardino pleaded guilty in August 2024 to two federal drug distribution charges. After Saha and Garcia sold the cocaine that killed Filson and Castillo, Saha shared cocaine with San Bernardino residents Donald Kelly, 33, and Cannon Farris, 42. All three overdosed, but Saha survived. The four deaths occurred within 48 hours.
Prosecutors acknowledged Saha had his own cocaine supply and that Garcia’s drugs might not have caused the San Bernardino deaths. Garcia was not charged in connection with those deaths.
Saha has not yet been sentenced, McEvoy said.
The deaths occurred at the onset of a national fentanyl epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. since 2020.
According to Garcia’s plea agreement, she met Saha on Jan. 21, 2020, at the Third Street Tavern in Highland, where both were selling cocaine. She sold him cocaine in the parking lot and later at her residence before the two sold fentanyl-laced cocaine to Filson and Castillo. Filson’s mother found the couple unconscious the next day. Both died from acute fentanyl toxicity.
Kelly and Farris died at a San Bernardino apartment on East Pumalo Street. When Saha awakened nearly 24 hours after the three shared cocaine, he found both of them dead, according to federal investigative records.
Prosecutors alleged Garcia tried to sell more fentanyl-laced cocaine after learning her drugs had caused multiple deaths. An FBI affidavit cited a witness who said Garcia arranged another sale, while another said she became violently ill after testing the cocaine and flushed the remainder. Garcia later fled to Kansas after receiving threats.
Garcia’s defense submitted eight letters describing her troubled childhood, rehabilitation and devotion to her daughter. Cousin Vanessa Cardenas alleged Garcia suffered abuse in foster care, while cousin Rexine Salazar described her as “just trying to survive as a kid with no one.”
Supporters described Garcia as sober, employed and a devoted mother. “She is not the person she was before,” wrote Jodi Lockhart, her daughter’s paternal grandmother.
Prosecutors acknowledged Garcia’s rehabilitation but emphasized the deaths.
“Defendant’s reckless and dangerous actions took the lives of two young people,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Blake Hannah wrote.
For Jessica Filson’s parents, Garcia’s troubled past and efforts to turn her life around did little to sway their views on the punishment she deserved.
“Finding my only child, my daughter, cold and lifeless, and finding Nick’s cold body next to her, is a nightmare I will never wake up from,” Cheri Filson wrote in her victim impact statement. “Those are images no mother should ever have to live with.”
She described the anguish of explaining to the couple’s daughter, Elara, then just 4 years old, that her mother and father would never return home.
“Think about what it means to look into the eyes of a child who is too young to understand the permanence of death and somehow find the words to explain that the two people she needs most in this world are gone forever,” she wrote.
She said Garcia’s prison sentence paled in comparison to the permanent loss her family must endure.
“A person who goes to prison can still hear a loved one’s voice. They may receive a telephone call, a visit, a letter, or the reassurance that someone is waiting for them,” she wrote. “Death leaves none of those possibilities.”