An Anchorage criminal defense attorney with an ounce-a-day methamphetamine habit was working for a murderous gang that smuggled hard drugs from Mexico to Alaska, according to federal prosecutors.
A court filing in support of detaining Justin Facey, 44, says he bragged about being a “cartel attorney” for the traffickers, four of whom were indicted in the 2023 murder of two women found in Trapper Creek.
More than 60 people have been indicted as part of the larger conspiracy, which prosecutors have described as a veritable pipeline of meth, fentanyl, heroin and cocaine headed to Alaska dealers and, ultimately, street-level users.
A grand jury on Tuesday indicted Facey on charges of maintaining a drug-involved premises at his Anchorage home and possessing firearms in connection with drug trafficking. The indictment itself includes few details of Facey’s alleged crimes, but the memorandum in support of detention that prosecutors filed Wednesday after Facey’s arrest details his alleged drug use, sexual misconduct and impropriety as a lawyer.
“Having consciously adopted the persona of a self-described ‘cartel attorney’ and fueled by a spiraling addiction to methamphetamine and compulsive sexual misconduct, the defendant fully committed to the bit, engaging in a crime spree threatening the safety of the community and giving rise to serious concerns regarding his risk of flight following his apprehension,” prosecutors wrote in the memorandum.
According to the memorandum, this is what the federal prosecutors say happened:
Investigators were monitoring communications between the drug traffickers, including Heraclio Sanchez-Rodriguez, the group’s alleged leader, who was behind bars in California and using a contraband cell phone.
In June of 2023, the investigators saw messages between Facey and Sanchez-Rodriguez in which Facey offered to help smuggle one of the drug traffickers out of Alaska after they had nearly been arrested by Anchorage police.
Facey told the gang leader he knew a pilot who could fly the person out of Merrill Field in Anchorage, but there was some question about the timing, because, while they were messaging, the pilot’s plane was in use for flight-seeing tourism.
The detention memorandum does not name the pilot or flight-seeing company, nor does it say whether the effort to smuggle the person out of Alaska was successful.
In exchange for drugs delivered to his home, Facey later offered Sanchez-Rodriguez advice on laundering the drug proceeds. Facey also asked for help assaulting someone after some sort of dispute with them, and Sanchez-Rodriguez allegedly told an underling to shoot the person, though the memorandum says law enforcement disrupted the plan.
“Exhibiting characteristically poor impulse control, the defendant couldn’t help but brag about his newfound status as a ‘cartel lawyer’ to anyone in the Anchorage legal community who might listen,” the prosecutors wrote.
That included Facey bragging that he had been able to lease a larger office for his legal practice, which the cartel had retained “for all their Alaska needs,” reads one of his messages included in the memorandum.
“The cartel literally threw a duffle bag from a moving vehicle onto my roof to hire me last week,” Facey allegedly wrote to an unnamed person in July of 2023. “Had to retrieve it with a ladder.”
After Sanchez-Rodriguez was indicted in June 2023, the investigation into Facey continued. That included talking to people he had allegedly victimized in his role as their attorney.
One woman described him as “a drug addict, a pig, and a disgusting slob” and said he had coerced her for sex acts as payment for his legal representation.
“(The woman) described that the defendant maintained a drug premises, used methamphetamine, and maintained a young woman as a ‘housekeeper’ who he paid with controlled substances for her services,” prosecutors wrote in the memorandum. “(She) described the defendant’s methamphetamine addiction as extreme and told investigators that he used up to an ounce per day.”
In February of 2025, the Alaska Bar Association suspended Facey from practicing law in Alaska. That was after numerous complaints, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Facey then turned to drug dealing to support himself, “primarily fentanyl to drug-dependent and vulnerable women,” the memorandum says.
“In one particularly heartbreaking exchange in December 2024, the defendant urged a pregnant
woman looking for work as a housecleaner to exchange sex for $80 and a small amount of
methamphetamine, only to ultimately short-change the woman by $20,” prosecutors wrote in the memorandum.
A warrant in the court records shows Facey was arrested Wednesday. He was set to make his initial court appearance in the case Thursday, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Alaska.
The statement said the Alaska federal prosecutors had also been recused from the case, “with the exception of certain personnel,” and that an assistant U.S. Attorney from the Northern District of New York would be assisting with Facey’s prosecution.
Reagan Zimmerman-Hartzheim, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alaska, declined to comment on the recusal in an email Thursday.
Idaho attorney Nick Vieth, who was appointed to represent Facey, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday.
