Honduran fentanyl dealer with a dozen arrests under his belt gets 67 months at San Francisco federal courthouse
A Honduran who dealt drugs with impunity in San Francisco for years despite being regularly arrested with narcotics for sale was sentenced to 67 months at the city’s federal courthouse today.
Jefferson Zelaya, 26, was arrested roughly a dozen times in five years, overwhelmingly in San Francisco, overwhelmingly in and around the Tenderloin, and overwhelmingly for dealing huge quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.
His twelfth arrest, in January 2025, finally brought a federal prosecution.
Officers took 412.7 grams of fentanyl off him in December 2022 and 171.3 grams in March 2023, with arrests in January 2021, April 2021 and January 2022 accounting for a further 546 grams between them, and prosecutors put the running total at about 1.13 kilograms of fentanyl seized across the arrests, on top of the methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin, the digital scales, the bundles of empty baggies and the cash, which ran to $1,035 in a fanny pack when police pulled him over in June 2021.
The court was told that fentanyl supplied by Zelaya caused the overdose death of a man found unresponsive in a community pool bathroom in San Ramon in January 2023, the drugs having reached him through a middleman who later named Zelaya as his source.
He earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine relating to drugs found in three arrests in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
“[Zelaya] continued to deal drugs in the Tenderloin despite numerous arrests because he suffered no consequences from any of those arrests,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lina Peng wrote in a sentencing memorandum ahead of the hearing. “He brazenly stacked up multiple stay-away orders one after the other and disobeyed them repeatedly because, again, he suffered no consequences.”
Prosecutors asked for 87 months, but U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer turned them down in favor of the defense figure, saying he doubted Zelaya had grasped what he was selling.
“I’m not saying he didn’t understand he was selling drugs, but what I’m saying is, given his education, background and experiences I’m not sure he appreciated … the severity of how deadly this particular drug was,” Breyer said. “I don’t know – I’m not in his mind.” He went on: “I don’t think he’s very sophisticated … he has limited ability to appreciate in a larger sense the dangerousness of his activities.” The judge made clear that he himself was under no illusions about fentanyl.
“I ask forgiveness from all the community of San Francisco,” Zelaya said today through a Spanish interpreter. He said he had been living in his car and drinking heavily before his latest arrest.
The case echoes that of Hanti Gamez, a Honduran sentenced to nine years in 2025 for dealing the fentanyl that killed a teacher in San Francisco, in which the federal judge said judges at the city’s Hall of Justice had “totally dropped the ball” over their handling of the dealer.
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