A Downey-based attorney, Jackie Ferrari, pleaded guilty to a federal narcotics distribution charge for illegally selling more than 1,000 oxycodone pills after offering the opioid drugs for sale on Craigslist. Court documents show that, Ferrari sold a law enforcement source 50 oxycodone pills for $1,200 during a transaction on January 10. Ferrari was arrested case on January 18 after agreeing to sell the source another 180 pills for $4,100. The investigation into Ferrari began after a 22-year-old woman died in August 2018 of a fentanyl overdose, and text messages on the victim's phone initially indicated that she may have purchased the narcotics from a drug trafficker associated with Ferrari. While investigators did not link Ferrari to that overdose death, they opened an investigation “based on evidence…that she is a large-scale trafficker in opiates via the website Craigslist” and information developed by two local police departments tying Ferrari to drug trafficking activities in late 2017, according to an affidavit filed in this case. Court documents describe how Ferrari posted ads on Craiglist offering oxycodone and other drugs under coded names such as “foxy roxy dolls,” which referred to Roxicodone, a short-acting version of oxycodone. In her plea agreement, Ferrari admitted informing customers that they would be required to ingest a pill in her presence, to verify that they were not law enforcement.

Ferrari  faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison when she is sentenced on October 21 by United States District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald.

Was it worth her law license?