The case of a 41-year-old Kailua-Kona man accused of smuggling fentanyl into Hawaii from California has been moved to U.S. District Court in Honolulu.
Izaiah Matthew Shields is charged with possession with intent to distribute 40 grams of more of fentanyl. If convicted, he faces a potential 40-year prison term with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years’ incarceration.
According to the federal complaint, the Hawaii Police Department had search warrants for the bodies and the personal effects of Shields and his 37-year-old girlfriend, Moriah Goulette, when they arrived in Kona on a flight from San Francisco on Dec. 29, 2023.
The complaint said HPD searched Shields and his personal effects but didn’t find any controlled substances. A search of Goulette and her personal effects turned up 4.7 grams of fentanyl, police said.
Police put Goulette under arrest at that time and told Shields he wasn’t under arrest and was free to leave the airport. The complaint states, however, that Shields agreed to a request to undergo an X-ray of his abdominal and pelvic cavities at Kona Community Hospital.
The X-ray detected a foreign object in Shields’ body, the document states, and Shields voluntarily removed that object, a condom, from his anus. According to the complaint, the condom contained more than 50 grams of fentanyl and more than nine grams of methamphetamine, and Shields was arrested.
The federal charge is strictly a possession with intent to distribute and doesn’t cover an incident on Jan. 4 at Hawaii Community Correctional Center which resulted in the fentanyl overdose death of an inmate and the revival of another inmate with naloxone, also known as Narcan.
According to police, 56-year-old Steve Delgado of Pahoa died of fentanyl poisoning and 33-year-old Dwight Gardner of Hilo survived after jail authorities administered a dose of naloxone.
Both inmates, who were cellmates of Shields at the Hilo jail, were found unresponsive in the cell they shared with Shields.
Gardner told police, according to documents, that Delgado found the drugs in the mattress of Shields, who had been transported to court in Kona earlier in the day for a district court appearance. Gardner reportedly told officers he ingested the drug thinking it was cocaine.
Police found more than 2 ounces of fentanyl, much of it packaged in “condoms which contained ball-shaped items wrapped in plastic,” on the mattress, the documents state. It’s unclear how Shields concealed the drugs smuggled into the jail.
Charges connected with the drugs smuggled into the jail have been dismissed. That dismissal is without prejudice, which means prosecutors are free to refile them at a later date.
Goulette’s drug case is still active in state court.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
