A Fremont mother could spend just under five more months in jail after pleading guilty in the death of her toddler son who overdosed on fentanyl last year while the woman lay passed out from the powerful narcotic.
Sophia Gastelum-Vera, 27, wept Monday as she apologized for her role in the fatal overdose of 23-month-old Kristofer Ferreyra, whose death in October 2023 added to a growing list of young casualties related to the synthetic opioid. She also vowed to continue rehab and treatment for an addiction that overtook her life and left her separated from Kristofer’s three surviving siblings.
“I’m not at all going to try to justify my actions,” said Gastelum-Vera, 27, while reading from a prepared statement during a hearing Monday morning. “I miss my baby so much, and I want to be the mother I once was.”
Gastelum-Vera could have been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in August to involuntary manslaughter. Her plea came as part of a deal with prosecutors that included the dismissal of several lesser charges, including a felony child-abuse charge and multiple drug-related misdemeanors.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Clifford Blakely appeared to soften his stance toward Gastelum-Vera on Monday morning, however, after hearing her counselors and treatment providers praise the woman for her commitment to rehab. They recalled how the mother attends at least a dozen group therapy sessions a week while consistently testing negative for drugs.
They also praised Gastelum-Vera for being so engaged with her three other children during their weekly visits.
“I came in here fully prepared to send you to prison today,” Blakeley said during the hearing.
He recounted several “significant” factors that suggested Gastelum-Vera deserved a harsher sentence, including how she smoked a drug she knew was dangerous in the same room as her toddler and another child. Worst of all, Blakeley said, was how the boy had so much life left to live.
Yet Blakely also lauded Gastelum-Vera for throwing herself so fervently into fighting her addiction after being ordered by another judge to a three-month residential treatment program late last year.
On Monday, several of Gastelum-Vera’s family and friends sat in the courtroom in a show of support for the woman. They joined the rehab counselors who have been overseeing her treatment for the last several months.
“She wanted it — she wanted a change in her life,” said Darlene Mitchell, a program coordinator for Orchid Women’s Perinatal Treatment, the residential treatment program where Gastelum-Vera first got court-ordered help.
Blakely sentenced Gastelum-Vera on Monday to a year in jail, with the opportunity to see that sentence halved with good conduct. She also received credit for having already served 43 days in jail after her arrest last year. Once out, she must serve two years of probation.
Blakely also denied a request by Gastelum-Vera’s lawyer to allow the woman to serve her sentence on house arrest.
“To say this is a tragic situation is an understatement … this is as tragic as it comes,” Blakeley said. “I know that your remorse is genuine.”
The hearing came nearly a year to the day after Gastelum-Vera found Kristofer unresponsive at about 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2023. Her boyfriend, who also slept in the room with them that night, took the boy and his mother to the hospital. Kristofer was pronounced dead an hour later.
Gastelum-Vera initially told police that she didn’t keep any drugs in the house. But when officers searched the Fremont home shortly after the boy’s death, they found empty baggies that were covered in fentanyl, as well as messages on the mother’s phone detailing how she purchased the narcotic the night before he died, court records show.
The case added to fears that the powerful opioid, 50 times stronger than heroin, was being increasingly sold and used in family homes where infants can have easy access to it. Already, toddlers and infants in Brentwood, Livermore, Oakland and San Jose have either died from exposure to the drug or were seriously poisoned by it.
It also added to concerns about Alameda County’s safety net for children. A review by this news organization of Kristofer’s child welfare records found inconsistent record keeping and troubling inconsistencies in how county officials responded to the toddler’s death.
Shortly after the incident, one social worker recommended keeping the boy’s three young siblings in the care of his mother despite police having just found drug paraphernalia littered throughout the boy’s bedroom, according to records obtained by this newspaper. The boy’s death wasn’t noted in a social worker’s initial assessment of the home.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
