Overview
- On Thursday the court accepted Deijae Jester’s no-contest plea to possessing 25 fentanyl-laced pills and sentenced him to four years in state prison.
- Prosecutors say the pills were hidden in a blue balloon that Jester’s mother tried to pass to him during a December 2025 visit to Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall.
- Investigators used visit footage and recorded calls that showed Jester coordinating contraband with his mother, and staff seized the balloon at the time of the visit.
- Jester was convicted in 2023 of killing rapper Pop Smoke when he was 15 and had been held in Sylmar juvenile custody, where records show multiple narcotics incidents including an overdose that required Narcan.
- The new adult sentence changes his expected juvenile placement, moves him out of the youth system, leaves his mother facing separate narcotics charges, and raises questions about security and staffing at county juvenile facilities.