An Overland Park man will spend almost 13 years in prison for distributing a drug that killed a teenager.
On Sept. 23 in Johnson County District Court, Hugo Cesar Guzman Jr. was sentenced to 155 months in prison for one count of distributing a controlled substance resulting in death.
In 2022, Guzman sold drugs containing fentanyl to Wesley Howard, a 19-year-old Gardner resident, who later died.
Guzman will serve his sentence at the Kansas Department of Corrections. He will be credited 713 days for the time he served in jail before his sentencing. When he is released, he will also serve 36 months on post-release supervision.
Judge Timothy McCarthy handed down the sentence.
Howard died in February 2022
On Feb. 19, 2022, Guzman sold pills containing fentanyl to Howard in a Chuck E. Cheese parking lot in Overland Park, according to court records.
A day later, Howard was found dead in his bedroom in Gardner after ingesting the pills, which later tested positive for fentanyl by Overland Park Police Department investigators.
During an investigation into Howard’s death, the Overland Park Police Department conducted two controlled buys from Guzman. The drugs included in each sale later tested positive for fentanyl, according to court records.
On Oct. 12, 2023, Guzman was charged and taken into custody. He pleaded guilty to the charge of distributing a controlled substance resulting in death on July 16, 2025.
“That smile was infectious”
Howard was known as an athlete and lover of the outdoors and animals, from the time he spent living in Colorado, Utah and Kansas, according to his obituary.
“(He) would spend his time in Colorado mountain biking, hiking, and skiing whenever he could. He would race his mom down the mountain and be so proud to take the last lift chair up the mountain for the day, knowing that he gave it his all,” the obituary read.
Howard graduated from Gardner Edgerton High School in 2021.
Known as both shy and a goofy, Howard was a person that fought for the underdog, Jenn Nimmo, Howard’s mother, said.
“As he grew up into a teenager and a young teen, he always was the one to have fun and have this huge personality of making everyone feel welcome and know that they had a friend,” she said.
Through the three-year process of getting justice for Howard’s death, Nimmo said it was both physically and emotionally draining. But it was worth it to get accountability and try and prevent more people from dying.
“If there was a way that I could prevent it from happening to other people, I wanted to take that road. I didn’t want to just hover and collapse over just losing my son because that was horrible enough,” she said.
“The idea of seeing other people going through this was just unbearable. And I know that Wesley would have wanted that too. Wesley would have been the one that said ‘You can’t let this keep happening. So, we have to do something, and we have to get this guy,'” she added.
Guzman’s is the latest fentanyl-related conviction
Guzman’s sentence is the latest conviction in Johnson County involving a death related to fentanyl.
In January in federal court in Missouri, Jacob A. Block, 27, of Olathe, was handed down a 20-year prison sentence with no possibility of parole for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, which caused someone’s fatal overdose.
In May 2024, Judge Christina Dunn Gyllenborg sentenced Cameron Bryant, 28, to 140-months in prison for felony distribution of drugs that caused the death of 18-year-old Olivia Piotrowski.
In the wake of Howard’s death, Nimmo said she’s looking into ways to prevent fentanyl addiction and overdoses.
“It kind of goes beyond just accountability. We need to look at prevention, and we need to look at how we’re treating substance use and mental health and this public health crisis, because it’s a bigger issue than just the people that are selling drugs and the people who are taking them,” she said.
Fentanyl deaths have been a target by both parents of children who died from overdoses and the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office.
“‘There are quite a few overdoses and deaths occurring in Johnson County because of fentanyl and so, it becomes even more important for us to try and figure out strategies to stem the tide of this horrible drug,” Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said in a previous interview with the Johnson County Post. “If you’re dealing death — which is fentanyl — to other individuals, there will be repercussions for your actions.”
Other Johnson County Court news: Lenexa woman sentenced to 6 years in prison for DUI death
