The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed it is still investigating the death of former Coachella Valley state Assemblyman Brian Nestande, who succumbed to a lethal dose of fentanyl and cocaine.
The sheriff’s department declined to disclose what aspects of the death it is investigating, and county prosecutors said no charges have been filed. In prior cases, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin has brought murder charges against people who supplied lethal doses of fentanyl.
A full autopsy report by the county coroner, which has been obtained by The Desert Sun, sheds more light on Nestande’s death and how it was discovered.
And the case highlights the widespread nature of the fentanyl epidemic.
Coachella mayor and others found body
The autopsy report details how Nestande’s body was found by a group of his friends that included Coachella Mayor Steven Hernandez, who is also the chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez.
Hernandez told a sheriff’s deputy that he and a group of friends had gone to Nestande’s Palm Desert home to check on him after they had lunch together and learned none of them had heard from Nestande in several days.
Hernandez said he had last seen Nestande three days prior when they met for breakfast with other friends, at which point Hernandez thought Nestande had looked healthy.
Hernandez and his friends entered the home through an unlocked back door and found Nestande unresponsive on the floor in a room that appeared to have been set up to serve as an office.
The cause of death listed on the autopsy examination report is “Multiple Substance Intoxication (Fentanyl, Cocaine).”
Forensic pathologist Scott A. Luzi wrote that toxicology testing showed a designer form of fentanyl and a cocaine metabolite in Nestande’s blood. Luzi added that Nestande’s death was the result of a “cardiac arrhythmia” caused by the drugs. He also wrote that Nestande’s body showed signs of hypertension and heart disease, which may have contributed to his death.
The report states that both Hernandez and Nestande’s wife, Gina Nestande, told the coroner that Nestande’s family had a history of cardiac problems. However, Gina said she did not know Nestande to have heart issues, although she reported he did not visit a doctor regularly.
Nestande had high level of fentanyl in blood
Wendy Hetherington, who works on overdose awareness for Riverside University Health System, said the amount of fentanyl detected in Nestande’s blood was significantly above the therapeutic level of fentanyl of 0.2 ng per milliliter. The therapeutic level, she explained, is the amount that is deemed safe to be prescribed by physicians for pain management.
The toxicology report completed after Nestande’s autopsy states that his blood contained fentanyl at a concentration of 13.6 nanograms (ng) per milliliter of fentanyl and 5.0 ng per milliliter of norfentanyl, which she described as what fentanyl turns into when it has been processed by the body.
Hetherington, the health system’s branch chief of epidemiology and program evaluation, said the two numbers being relatively close together suggests that the body has had some time to process fentanyl, while a lower level of norfentanyl would indicate that someone had died more quickly after ingesting fentanyl. However, she cautioned that there is no way to tell from the autopsy report alone how much fentanyl Nestande ingested, when it was ingested or why.
She added that there is also nothing in the report that shows if the fentanyl and cocaine were contained in another substance ingested by Nestande. The report did not directly mention any evidence of fentanyl or cocaine being found at Nestande’s home.
Fentanyl use a widespread social problem
While Hetherington said the autopsy report alone does not provide clear answers about the circumstances that led Nestande to ingest the drugs, she said the current fentanyl overdose crisis is one that has been shown to impact many strata of society.
“It’s not just like people who live on the streets or a chronic person with really severe drug addiction,” said Hetherington, who oversees the health system’s Overdose Data to Action program.
Instead, she said overdoses often result from people taking substances that they don’t know the composition of, which is a risk anytime someone purchases fentanyl from a non-pharmaceutical source. She cited a recent survey by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that found that a third of American adults know someone who has died from a drug overdose and another survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that found that 50% of adults admit to using illicit drugs in their lifetime and 25% said they had used them in 2022.
“Everyone knows someone,” she said of the prevalence of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs.
Fentanyl, in particular, is dangerous because of its extreme toxicity, which is part of the reason it has become popular among those who make illegal drugs in the first place because drugmakers need to add less of it than comparable drugs to produce the same effects.
DA has taken aggressive stance on fentanyl
While the sheriff’s office confirmed there is an investigation into Nestande’s death, it declined to provide further details about what specifically they were investigating. A sheriff’s spokesperson, Sergeant Wenndy Brito-Gonzalez, declined to say whether investigators were looking into who provided Nestande the drugs.
A spokesman for the county district attorney’s office, John Hall, said the office has not received a case from law enforcement regarding Nestande’s death. Hestrin, the elected district attorney, has been a vocal proponent of the need to “get tough” on people who supply fentanyl and said his office is pursuing murder charges when appropriate.
In November, a jury in Murrieta became the first in the state to find a defendant guilty of murder in such a case. Prosecutors said that defendant, Vicente Romero, split a pill with a 26-year-old woman, Kelsey King, who died from an overdose as a result.
“This verdict is a testament to our unwavering commitment to protecting our communities, providing justice for victims, and holding those accountable who engage in the distribution of illicit fentanyl resulting in death,” Hestrin said at the time.
‘Like a brother’
Meanwhile, those who knew Nestande continue to remember him while grappling with his loss.
Hernandez told The Desert Sun he was “like a brother” and “a great man” whose impact on him and the community lives on.
Among Nestande’s many roles in politics was working as then-U.S. Rep. Mary Bono’s chief of staff from 1998 to 2000. Nestande previously managed the campaign for Sonny Bono, who was married to Mary until his death in a skiing accident in 1998. She succeeded him in representing a district that included the Coachella Valley in Congress.
Mary Bono said Friday that former staff members who worked for her and Sonny would be gathering in DC over the weekend for a reunion and celebration of Nestande.
Desert Sun staff writer Tom Coulter contributed to this report.
Paul Albani-Burgio covers growth, development and business in the Coachella Valley. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Sheriff investigating fentanyl overdose of ex-California lawmaker