The Chicago man charged two weeks ago with possessing a pill-making machine and $1.2 million worth of meth and fentanyl will face new charges today for allegedly driving a stolen car toward federal agents who were trying to arrest him.
Prosecutors told a Cook County judge about the auto theft and threat to agents during Allen Dean’s bail hearing on May 16, but they did not criminally charge him with those crimes until now.
Federal authorities began investigating Dean three years ago after U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents discovered that someone was mailing parcels containing fentanyl from California to an address in Chicago’s Burnside neighborhood, Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Vojta said on May 16.
After a lengthy investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration agents prepared to execute a search warrant on a home linked to Dean on March 29, Votja said. As they did, Dean arrived at the house in a white car. Agents tried to stop him.
But Dean drove onto a sidewalk and sped away, according to Votja. When DEA agents blocked Dean in, he ran and climbed into a “gated facility,” where he stole a security guard’s vehicle, crashed through the facility’s gate, assaulted the agents, and sped away. Police later found the car abandoned in Chicago.
Dean posted bail and went home to await trial, but authorities arrested him again yesterday to face additional counts related to his escape, according to CPD.
He will appear for a new bail hearing this afternoon on charges of burglary, possessing a stolen motor vehicle, and three counts of aggravated assault of a peace officer, a Chicago police media statement said.
When police executed the search warrant in March, investigators found the unit unoccupied, except for an apparent pill-making operation. There was one functioning pill press, parts of a non-functioning pill press that Dean allegedly received from China, over a pound of white powder believed to be a mixture of methamphetamine and fentanyl, and a blue powder binding agent, Votja said on May 16.
Investigators also found 5,460 pills believed to be methamphetamine and fentanyl imprinted with identifiers associated with the legitimate prescription drugs Percocet and oxycodone, Votja said. He added that the mixture of methamphetamine and fentanyl is unusual and noted that the Illinois State Police lab had only recorded 28 cases of the blend in the past year.
The pills and powder allegedly have a street value of $1,197,735.
Police also executed a search warrant at Dean’s home on the Near North Side. There, they found “multiple” pills bearing Percocet markings that tested positive for fentanyl, according to Votja.
Dean’s private attorney, Cierra Norris, launched a vigorous defense of the father of two. She said he has no criminal background and owns a trucking company. The receipt that police left inside his home after the search warrant listed several items that authorities seized, including Rolex watches, boxes of ammunition, and a computer, but did not mention anything about the pills Votja said investigators found.
She also argued that if the case against Dean was any good, federal prosecutors would have taken it.
“If there was even a scintilla of evidence, we wouldn’t be in state court,” Norris said.
Votja countered that nothing prohibits state prosecutors from taking a narcotics case and called Norris’ claim “somewhat laughable.”
Fentanyl, an opioid up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is frequently mixed into street drugs without the end user’s knowledge. With just two milligrams considered a lethal dose, fentanyl is widely considered the primary reason that opioid-related deaths increased nearly 750% from 2015 to 2021.
Earlier this month, police arrested two men at Midway Airport after they allegedly arrived on a flight from California with 44 pounds of fentanyl in their luggage.