Hollywood woman convicted of running delivery service dubbed 'Uber, but for drugs'
A Hollywood woman was convicted Tuesday of running a lucrative drug delivery business out of her apartment, with a jury finding her responsible for supplying fentanyl that caused multiple overdoses in 2020 and 2021.
Mirela Todorova, 36, stood trial beginning last month, accused of leading an operation prosecutors described as 'Uber, but for drugs.' She was convicted on nine counts, including three charges of drug distribution that caused "serious bodily injury" in three non-fatal overdoses.
After being ordered removed from the downtown Los Angeles courtroom earlier Tuesday by the judge for disrupting the prosecution's rebuttal in closing arguments, Todorova reacted impassively as the jury's unanimous verdict was read, betraying no emotion.
Authorities said they were first alerted to the operation in 2020, when Beverly Hills resident Ray Mascolo was found dead, reportedly after purchasing fentanyl-laced oxycodone pills from one of Todorova's delivery drivers.
Read more: Woman said to run Hollywood drug delivery service faces trial — but not for fatal overdose
The three overdose survivors testified at the downtown Los Angeles trial. Two of them, along with several disgruntled customers, warned Todorova repeatedly throughout 2020 and 2021 that she was selling dirty drugs, according to text messages obtained by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
But time and again, she ignored their concerns to keep profits up, her former delivery driver Kather Sei said during the trial.
'It's not something I signed up for,' said Sei, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possession of drugs with intent to distribute. 'People are getting sick. People are getting hurt.'
In addition to the fentanyl distribution counts, which carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 years, Todorova was found guilty of selling methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy, engaging in conspiracy and making false statements to authorities.
Read more: How a man's death in Beverly Hills exposed a sprawling Hollywood drug delivery business
DEA agents who searched Todorova's apartment said they found several stockpiles of plastic bowls containing colorful pills and powders — beside them, packing materials and kitchen scales with chalky residue. Ziploc bags of cash, labeled by amount, were tucked into bedside drawers and strewn about the floor.
Agents ultimately seized from the property a cache of drugs that included cocaine, MDMA, ketamine, mushrooms, and various pills and capsules, including a discolored oxycodone that tested positive for fentanyl. They also confiscated nearly $9,000 in cash and Todorova's iPhone, which prosecutors said stored 'a daily journal of a drug owner operating a drug business."
Evidence from Todorova's iMessage and WhatsApp accounts showed she sent regularly updated drug menus to her drivers and clients, instructed Sei how to cook drugs in her apartment and demanded efficiency from other delivery drivers to maximize her profits, estimated at around $790,000.
By linking her personal phone via iCloud to several 'work phones' used by her employees, prosecutors said, she kept a 'watchful eye over her business' — even as she routinely traveled between the U.S. and Mexico to raise her pet jaguar Princess.
Taking the stand in her own defense Monday, Todorova rejected the idea that she orchestrated the conspiracy and instead cast herself in a supporting role opposite her ex-boyfriend, Javier Lopez, who also allegedly sold drugs in Hollywood around the same time using the same phone number and several of the same delivery drivers.
Prosecutors said Monday that a DEA agent unsuccessfully attempted to contact Lopez to serve him a trial subpoena, and maintained that his alleged involvement in the conspiracy does not negate Todorova's guilt.
Read more: OnlyFans, trafficking and drug dealers: How a jaguar cub wound up in a California suburb
Todorova testified that she met Lopez, a self-proclaimed club promoter, more than a decade ago when she first began partying in Hollywood.
"I was attracted to his personality and the way he knew everyone and was the center of attention," Todorova said. Tagging along with Lopez to the city's hottest nightclubs was exciting, she added, "same as it would be to any girl in her mid-20s who hadn't been out in a while."
The first time a friend of Lopez's offered her cocaine, Todorova said, she politely declined, afraid she'd become addicted. But within a few years, she was a semi-regular drug user, then an occasional delivery driver for Lopez. Still, she said, she always considered the business to be his.
"In Ms. Todorova, Lopez found easy prey," Todorova's attorney Charles Brown wrote Sunday in a last-minute motion to dismiss the case.
"She was young, attractive, and apparently intelligent, but suffering from a neurodevelopmental disorder that made her socially naive, socially isolated, and emotionally starved for love and connection — which all made her particularly vulnerable to abuse and manipulation," Brown said in the motion.
But Todorova's former delivery drivers and customers testified that she didn't answer to anyone. She said as much herself in numerous text references to 'my business' and 'my drivers.' In one message from 2018, she told a supplier Lopez was working for her.
Read more: Mexico sends drug lord Caro Quintero and 28 others to the U.S.
As for the overdoses, Brown argued during the trial that all three victims in the case had taken other drugs or been drinking alcohol the same night they purchased oxys from Todorova. Such substances have a 'synergistic effect,' he said, and therefore when it comes to pinpointing the cause of the overdose, 'it's not that easy of an equation.'
But lab tests showed one overdose victim had a fentanyl metabolyte as well as cocaine and benzodiazepines — commonly sold as Valium or Xanax — in their system.
And in text messages, Todorova confirmed to a customer that she had in stock fentanyl pills that looked like "Perc 30s," or oxy blues. She said they were $30 apiece.
Read more: Newsom signs bill pushing for Narcan in workplace first aid kits
A Bulgarian immigrant who attended grade school in Canada before her family relocated to Newbury Park in the early 2000s, Todorova was a quiet and intelligent child, her mother Margaret Todorova testified during the trial. Before her solo move to Hollywood in 2020, Todorova was on track to pursue a career in biotechnology.
Even as Todorova flung herself into her ex-boyfriend's orbit, her mother said she never stopped advocating for her to return to her studies.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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