After a nearly three-year cycle of hope lost and regained, Kim Osterman finally found her peace.

Thursday, at his sentencing hearing, she told her son’s drug dealer what he stole from her.

“The community will be safer with Sergio Guerra-Carrillo finally behind bars and hopefully unable to take another life,” Osterman said. “I hope he considers turning his life around because he still has time to live, to start a family, to give his mother grandchildren. All the things Max never had a chance to do.”

Broomfield County Judge Amanda Dewick did what Osterman asked. Carrillo received the maximum punishment of six years in prison for the two distribution charges. Next week, he will be sentenced for a November 2022 distribution conviction and those years will run concurrent with the Osterman sentence.

Dewick said the Carrillo was responsible for a total of four drug-involved deaths.

Max Osterman — a high school wrestler, future business school student and drug user — died of a fentanyl overdose on Feb. 3, 2021, one month before his 19th birthday.

After a 16-month police investigation, on June 6, 2022, prosecutors with the 17th Judicial District told Osterman that no charges would be filed in the case against her son’s dealer.

The reason?

How could Carrillo be charged if he did not force Max Osterman to ingest M30’s. The 18-year-old knowingly ordered them over text and Snapchat and took what Carrillo called “the devil blues” to get high.

As Kim Osterman described it: “Max was not a one and done. But there were a lot of failures and a lot of things that could have been done differently.”

Further, Colorado state laws in 2021 would not allow prosecutors to charge distribution causing death.

Mason’s office expressed condolences to Osterman’s family, but in a statement, said, “We have spoken directly to Ms. Osterman about the legal requirements that caused us to reach the decision following her son’s death. In publicly commenting on this investigation, we remain sensitive to the family’s privacy interests by not commenting on the facts that led to our decision to not file charges.”

The case closed, and Osterman believed “They wanted for me to go away.”

Dogged quest for justice

Instead, the United Airlines flight attendant got angry. She obtained the Broomfield police report, and the knowledge she gained from that only fueled her desire to prove that Max did not die for nothing.

Perhaps on her side was the fact that she acknowledged Max’s responsibility in his own death.

“Do I blame Max for his choices? Yes I do,” said Osterman. “The drugs weren’t a secret and I’m not saying my son was an angel.”

Still, she saw the pills he took as a lethal weapon.

The document revealed Snapchat messages between Max Osterman and a person called “Sergio G” whose Snapchat account showed a bearded emoji avatar with dollar signs for eyes.

There were two days she found messages for the sale of “M30’s” or “Percs” between the two of them.

It was Sergio G whom Max met in a King Soopers parking lot Jan. 31, 2021. On Feb. 2, Max ingested a portion of a tiny blue pill and cocaine. The next morning, he was dead. The autopsy report indicated that fentanyl and cocaine were found in the Broomfield teen’s body.

Osterman wanted to know more. She scoured the Brighton County Courthouse for documents and learned the Colorado Bureau of Investigation system. She attended hearings and met with 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason to convince him to reopen the case into Max’s death.

Key evidence in her personal investigation?

“Kim was most amazing for the way she gathered facts,” said Denver attorney and former prosecutor Craig Silverman, who advocated for Kim Osterman during her fight for justice.

Silverman wanted to see a grand jury compel witnesses to tell what they knew, but bringing dealers to trial could be a challenge, especially when the parameters fell before tighter fentanyl laws were in place.

Silverman requested a face-to-face meeting with Kim, her ex-husband David Osterman and 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason.

As a former prosecutor, Silverman understood that Mason was in a tough position to charge Carrillo.

“DA’s and legislators have never seen such a toxic controlled substance,” he said. “Fentanyl is tiny and deadly and society is struggling to find solutions.”

New life for Osterman’s case

In Nov. 2022, Carrillo was arrested for distribution of more than 50 grams of fentanyl to a local drug task force, and Osterman’s case suddenly took on new life.

“For whatever reason, they reopened Max’s case and I am very grateful that they did,” said Osterman, who gave credit to 17th Judicial Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristen Baker for reading an email she sent begging her to go after Carrillo.

The evidence that convicted Carrillo did not change from the original investigation laid out four months before and dismissed as “not enough.” Osterman felt that the reason prosecutors re-opened Max’s case is because it provided more weight.

Carrillo was convicted of two counts of distribution of a controlled substance in Max Osterman’s death — one for fentanyl and another for cocaine, which court documents say were sold “on or around Feb. 1, 2021.”

Thursday, after a court logistics postponement, Osterman gathered several friends for support and they drove in a caravan of vehicles to the Broomfield County Courthouse. At 3:30 pm, she walked to the podium and addressed Judge Dewick as Carrillo looked on.

“I stand here with just some of my loving family and friends who have picked me up and carried me through these incredibly horrific two years and nine months since my son’s death to ask that you give the maximum sentence to Sergio Guerra-Carrillo,” she said in court.

When she gave him his sentence, Judge Dewick wondered how many more mothers would have to appear before her, pleading for justice. She didn’t think the defendant was remorseful enough, even after repeated arrests following Max Osterman’s death.

Because the cases are ongoing, Mason declined to comment.

Osterman will check into the possibility that Carrillo can be charged federally in Max’s death because she feels that state laws protected the dealers in 2021 before stronger sanctions took effect.

Osterman walked out of the courtroom, hugged her friends and drove home in a leased Honda. Plowing through the investigation meant she couldn’t work full-time and she said she’s broke.

She has joined 60 other families in a lawsuit against Snapchat to hold the platform accountable for the conversations there.

“They’ve made some changes, but kids still buy drugs every day on Snapchat and then the messages disappear,” she said. “This is to be continued.”