SAN FRANCISCO — A man and woman have been sentenced to four years in federal prison for running a drug delivery service that offered clients perks like time with cute puppies, court records show.
The alleged leader of the drug ring, Natalie Marie Gonzalez, is a Stanford alumni who ran the illicit business with all the care, attentiveness to detail and intellectual curiosity that the top university is known for. Prosecutors say she inquired potential middlemen drug dealers to their customer base, not wanting to contribute to drug addiction, held customers to a $300 minimum and hid drug transactions from scrutiny with use of cryptocurrency.
Prosecutors describe a drug business modeled after popular delivery services, like DoorDash or Instacart. After an online order, customers would be instructed to wait for a Subaru to come bring the drugs to a pre-determined location. Sometimes, they’d be given a description of the delivery driver’s “black and white puppy” and encouraged to take some time to pet the pup so that onlookers wouldn’t get suspicious.
During the investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration learned that one of Gonzalez’s cocaine suppliers had overdosed on fentanyl while staying in a hotel room that had been paid for with Gonzalez’s credit card, according to a prosecution sentencing memo. In an interview with drug agents, her boyfriend reportedly blamed a cartel and a “bait and switch” technique, whereby fentanyl had been substituted for cocaine.
Gonzalez was sentenced on Friday to 50 months in federal prison. Last week, a co-defendant, Frederick Gaestel, was sentenced to 48 months behind bars. Two others, Rory Ricky and Mathew Sestak, have still-pending federal charges related to the same ring, authorities said.
According to a news release by the Department of Justice, drug agents seized “a kilogram of fentanyl, roughly seven kilograms of cocaine, orange fake Adderall pills containing methamphetamine and ketamine” during a raid of a Menlo Park stash house associated with the ring. The investigation was aided by a confidential informant — one of Gonzalez’s former friends who got busted, according to court records.
In a defense sentencing memo, Gonzalez’s attorney describes her as a gifted and enterprising young woman who acquired a B.S. degree in civil and environmental engineering and architectural design from Stanford in 2015, and was involved in other entrepreneurial activities beyond her drug business. Prosecutors, too, described Gonzalez as full of potential during her upbringing in Colorado, noting she received $30,000 through a youth grant program for violin lessons, a trip to Peru and dance instructions.
David Rizk, the defense lawyer representing Gonzalez, said she was brought up by two “hippies” who raised their family in the mountains, valued accomplishment more than wealth and ate organic food before it was cool. But, he added, they exhibited certain eccentricities that affected Gonzalez’s life trajectory.
In a letter to the court, Gonzalez recounted how her dad would sometimes sip a cocktail during road trips, but take his hands off the wheel during sips so he could jokingly insist he wasn’t drinking and driving.
“At Stanford, she continued to receive financial aid and lived in a student co-op where her alternative lifestyle was embraced, and she felt at home. Recreational drug use among the college students was common, which reinforced her view that even illegal drugs could be used responsibly, and that some substances, like ketamine, psilocybin, and LSD, offered potential benefits that far exceeded those of social-accepted drugs like alcohol,” Rizk wrote. “She believed that adults ought to have the opportunity to explore altered states, provided doing so did not harm others.”
These qualities were noted by drug agents in 2023, who said in court filings that Gonzalez actually voiced concern over spreading addiction, while selling counterfeit Adderall pills that contained methamphetamine.
“We serve a lot of students and young professionals, who use them for work, but I’m curious what you’re (sic) understanding of the use for your clients,” she allegedly asked an undercover agent, who said he wished to sell the pills to “college kids/my post grad friends.”
“Thank you for sharing, I more just want to make sure that we are sharing responsibility rather than contributing to addictions that are damaging people,” Gonzalez allegedly replied.
Then she arranged for the agent to receive 1,000 meth pills, according to prosecutors.
In a letter to the court, Gonzalez reflected on all of this — her upbringing, time at Stanford, hopes and dreams for the future, and how she evolved from taking interest in recreational drugs like LSD to addictive substances like methamphetamine. She was in “deep denial” about the harm she was causing, she wrote, and it continued even after the fatal overdose in the Southern California hotel.
“I received praise and validation from people I respected, and I let that reinforce my delusion that I was doing something positive,” she wrote, before recounting the overdose incident. After that, Gonzalez added, “My reality had become so distorted that instead of stopping everything right then, the incident turned into further justification for what I was doing. I clung even harder to the idea that my careful testing somehow made my actions acceptable or was really saving lives.”
After her arrest, she wrote, “my whole delusion came crashing down.”
“Looking back, I see that I was personally using drugs to dissociate from pain, insecurity, and grief, while telling myself I was helping others heal. That contradiction is painful to sit with now,” she wrote. “I don’t share this to excuse what I did, but to show that I have confronted it honestly. What once felt justifiable now feels deeply misguided.”
