Woman gets prison for selling fentanyl to undercover agent in Moore

Tim Willert, The Norman Transcript, Okla.
Updated ·2 min read
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Mar. 16—Mar. 12—Tiffany Mata caught a break the first time she got caught with drugs for sale.

Her boyfriend wasn't so lucky. He went to prison for selling heroin. She got a deferred sentence, even though police found a semiautomatic pistol and 300 Xanax bars in her purse the night the couple was arrested in October 2020.

Mata's luck ran out March 8 when Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman sentenced her to 10 years in prison for trafficking in illegal drugs.

The 26-year-old Oklahoma City resident pleaded guilty to selling 30 fentanyl pills to an undercover drug task force agent in the parking lot of a Moore bingo hall in December 2021.

Fentanyl is an opioid painkiller many times more powerful than heroin, and typically prescribed to treat severe pain.

Prior to being sentenced, Mata asked Balkman for mercy. Her request fell on deaf ears.

"Your attorney's asking for diversion, to not go to prison and be in the community," he told her March 8. "I'm not going to do that.

"You've been given an opportunity before with a deferred sentence. What really concerns me is ... after the co-defendant was busted, you kept going."

District 21 Drug and Violent Crime Task Force Agents were led to Mata by a customer who gave her up after being stopped by Moore police for smoking fentanyl pills in his vehicle.

"He advised that he has know Tiffany for about 2 months and (she) is the girlfriend of his old dealer named "Peanut" but peanut was in jail for selling fentanyl," agents reported in a court affidavit.

An undercover agent contacted Mata through SnapChat and she agreed to sell him 20 fentanyl pills for $300, according to the affidavit.

They met in the parking lot of the bingo hall on Dec. 8, 2021, and again on Dec. 14, when she agreed to sell the agent 10 pills for $200, according to the affidavit.

A pre-sentence investigation filed March 1, indicated Mata was a high-risk to re-offend.

"Mata appears to be in the pre-contemplation stage of change in that she is unaware of changes that need to be made in her personal life and did not acknowledge her responsibility in the crime," the report stated. "Mata displayed no remorse for her actions. Therefore, Mata does not appear to be motivated to change.

"Based upon the background information compiled during this investigation, it is respectfully recommended that the Defendant, Tiffany Creonice Mata, be sentenced to a term of incarceration within the Oklahoma Department of Corrections."

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