Drug supplier receives sentence

When a Newport Coast woman succumbed to her addiction and overdosed on prescription medications in December 2005, her family wanted justice.

Who got her those drugs? How could she have so many?

On Monday, Joel Stanley Dreyer, 73, of Murrieta, the man who prescribed Jessica Silva several unnecessary medications, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Dreyer was charged with signing prescriptions for tens of thousands of medications for Silva and other people, ranging from Oxycontin to Xanax, for $100 a prescription.

In statements submitted to the federal court judge in Riverside, Silva’s brother described how her family knew something had happened to her. It was Christmas Day 2005. She hadn’t called anyone or answered her phone. When they went to her house, her brother heard Silva’s dog barking.

With Newport Beach police officers’ help, they broke into the house and found Silva dead, face down in her bedroom. A bottle of medication was next to her. The coroner later found more than 10 prescription medications in her system.

“Christmas will never be the same,� her brother Brett Siciliano wrote to the judge.

Authorities also linked Dreyer’s prescriptions to the death of a man in Costa Mesa in August 2007. Witnesses in the rehab home said the man, identified only as “B.K.,� acted strange the night before he was found dead from an overdose. Evidence showed Dreyer gave him prescriptions for Norco, Xanax and Oxycontin.

Any money Silva’s family expects to receive from Dreyer in restitution payments is going to a charity to help others battle addiction, according to relatives’ statements submitted to the court.