GREEN BAY – Jack McDonough was an artist, an athlete, a violin player, a hunter and an angler, his mother said.
A senior at Green Bay Southwest High School, he was sensitive, caring and "wise beyond his barely 18 years of age," she added.
Jack died Dec. 3, 2022, of a fentanyl overdose. The pills he used were purchased from a 15-year-old girl.
Maylia Sotelo, now 17, of Green Bay, was arrested days after Jack's death, after investigators learned she was trafficking counterfeit "M30" Percocet pills containing fentanyl. They found 775 of the fentanyl-laced pills in a shoebox in her bedroom, along with thousands of dollars in cash.
After efforts to get her case moved to juvenile court failed, Sotelo pleaded no contest in May to one count of first-degree reckless homicide for delivering drugs, as well as to one count of possession with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of fentanyl and one count of manufacturing, distributing or delivering less than 10 grams of fentanyl.
Brown County Circuit Court Judge Beau Liegeois sentenced Sotelo to a total of 10 years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision, the same length of incarceration recommended by Brown County Deputy District Attorney Wendy Lemkuil.
"Jack was my only child, my everything," McDonough's mother said at Sotelo's sentencing hearing Tuesday. "My life was dedicated to him."
McDonough's mother said she believes Sotelo was responsible for her son's death. But she said other people held responsibility as well, including the Brown County Drug Task Force that allowed Sotelo to keep selling drugs after buying pills from her — during which time Jack bought a pill and died.
According to a criminal complaint, a narcotics investigator with the Brown County Drug Task Force purchased five fentanyl pills from Sotelo on Nov. 29, 2022, as part of an ongoing investigation.
Facebook messages between Sotelo and McDonough's girlfriend indicated that McDonough purchased two pills from Sotelo three days later, on Dec. 2. McDonough was found dead in his bedroom the following morning, with drug paraphernalia located near his body.
The De Pere Police Department investigating McDonough's death contacted a Brown County Drug Task Force investigator Dec. 6. At that time, the narcotics investigator said the drug task force was "going to set up another controlled buy with Sotelo," the complaint states. Later that day, Sotelo and another person were arrested after arriving in the parking lot of Taco Bell at 1529 W. Mason St. in Green Bay to sell 10 Percocet pills to a confidential informant. Police located three plastic bags of marijuana, $584 in cash and a handgun in their vehicle.
At Sotelo's sentencing hearing, Liegeois said he does not blame the Brown County Drug Task Force for not arresting Sotelo immediately after the controlled buy Nov. 29, as they were in the middle of an investigation to determine who was the "highest point" of the drug trafficking operation — which turned out to be Sotelo, Liegeois said.
But there's no guarantee Sotelo would not have been released after her arrest and gone back to selling, Liegeois said.
On Dec. 9, 2022, investigators discovered a shoebox in Sotelo's bedroom contained 775 M30 pills that tested positive for fentanyl, 14 THC vape cartridges and nearly $4,000 in cash.
Investigators interviewed Sotelo at the Fond du Lac County Juvenile Detention Center on Dec. 12, 2022. There, she provided the passcode to her phone, on which investigators located numerous conversations over text messages and Facebook Messenger between September and December 2022 discussing various drug deals. Many of the conversations regarding Sotelo selling drugs were with teens between 15 and 17 years old, according to a complaint.
"She was delivering these drugs throughout schools to young people," Lemkuil said at Sotelo's sentencing hearing. "It wasn't sadly a one-time thing."
In the reckless homicide complaint, Lt. Matthew Ronk of the Brown County Drug Task Force wrote that the unit had been buying blue Percocet "M30" pills "a minimum of weekly for at least the past two years in the Brown County area." Ronk said that in every instance, the pills tested positive for fentanyl.
According to theUnited States Drug Enforcement Administration, seven out of every 10 pills seized by the DEA contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. In 2023, the DEA seized 79.5 million fentanyl pills.
The DEA saysjust 2 milligrams of fentanylcan kill a person.
According to a criminal complaint, McDonough's family members said he had a drug addiction and they were aware he used to smoke Percocet. They said he had attended a rehab facility earlier in the year, then spent some time living with his father in Arizona before returning to Wisconsin.
Sotelo's defense attorney, Trisha Fritz, said McDonough had "the same substance abuse disorder that Maylia herself suffered from." Fritz also said Sotelo had been raised in an environment without parental support and had been surrounded by drug use from a young age. She learned about drug dealing from her older sister, who was arrested shortly before Sotelo, Fritz added.
Fritz asked Liegeois to consider sentencing Sotelo to a lengthy term of extended supervision rather than time in prison. If the judge felt he needed to order a prison sentence, Fritz asked it either only be until Sotelo turns 18, so she can receive resources at the female juvenile prison, Lincoln Hills School for Girls, or at most a sentence of five years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision.
Sotelo has already spent one year and seven months in Brown County Jail — a lengthy period of time for a teenage girl, Fritz said. During some of that time, Fritz said, Sotelo was kept in her cell for 23 hours a day "because she was a child in an adult jail and they didn't know what to do with her."
Fritz argued the prosecution's recommendation of 10 years in prison is "extremely out of proportion to everything in this case."
Before she was sentenced, Sotelo read a statement to the courtroom. She paused a few times to collect her breath through tears.
"I want to now sincerely apologize for the damage I've caused to the community and the pain I've inflicted. No words can fix what I've done," she said. "... There's not a day that goes by that I do not think about what I've done and what I could possibly do to restore what I have broken."
RELATED:Green Bay girl convicted of reckless homicide for selling fentanyl-laced drugs when she was 15
Sotelo said she vows to use her time in prison productively and participate in any treatment opportunities and services available in prison.
In McDonough's mother's victim impact statement, she said she forgives Sotelo, because she believes her son would have done the same.
She also said she hopes Sotelo has "the opportunity to become the person that Jack could have been, had he been given a second chance."
Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 orkarseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at@ArseneauKelli.
