Deaven Reinoehl was using and selling drugs and leading police on high-speed chases nearly every time officers tried to stop him.
Reinoehl’s streak of serious crimes for one so young led federal prosecutors in a rare move to take over a two-year-old state case against him.
It was clear, a federal judge said at Reinoehl’s recent sentencing, that his notorious father loomed large over the risks he took that endangered his own life and the lives of others.
Reinoehl’s father, Michael, had been shot and killed by police in Washington in September 2020 while on the run from a killing in downtown Portland after a Trump rally. Michael Reinoehl described himself as an anti-fascist and part of the self-styled security team during unrest that summer.
Before he died, Michael Reinoehl had encouraged his son’s descent into lawlessness, the judge pointed out.
The younger Reinoehl acknowledged his arrest stopped his further fall.
“I just want to apologize to you and to my family for the mistakes that I’ve made,” Deaven Reinoehl, now 22, told the court, as his mother, grandmother, younger sister and her boyfriend watched. “I’m not going to make the mistakes ever again and I’m sorry.”
U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio was struck by a letter Reinoehl submitted to her.
“You wrote, ‘I wish this didn’t happen but it had to happen.’ What do you mean by that?” Baggio asked.
“Just to give me a fresh start, a reality check to be able to plan my life correctly from here on,” he said.
Defense lawyer C. Renée Manes said she talked with Reinoehl extensively about how fortunate he was that he was arrested.
“He really could have ended up killing himself or someone else if he continued his behavior,” Manes said. “This was an intervention that to some extent is lifesaving for him.”
‘VERY RISKY BEHAVIOR’
His father’s death had overwhelmed Deaven Reinoehl, Manes said. He was using drugs and selling drugs to support himself and his sister, she said.
Michael Reinoehl, 48, had been accused of fatally shooting an opposing demonstrator, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, in downtown Portland on Aug. 29, 2020. Danielson was a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer and was walking in downtown Portland after a rally when he was shot.
Several days later, members of a fugitive task force fatally shot Michael Reinoehl as he left an apartment where he was hiding in Lacey, Washington.
Early the next morning, someone fired gunshots into the father’s Portland home, while Deaven Reinoehl, then 18, and his 11-year-old sister were inside the house. While his father was on the run, strangers threatened the family on social media.
“There are thousands of people heading your way and they are looking for your entire family,” one Facebook post read. “Be glad the police are still around to offer you some protection.”
Deaven Reinoehl engaged in “very risky behavior,” because he was going through a “period of extreme emotional trauma and duress” following the “sudden violent and very, very public death of his father,” with no support to help him through it, Manes said.
A little over a year later in December 2021, Deaven Reinoehl was pulled over near Brothers in Deschutes County, driving a Dodge Ram Truck at 75 mph on U.S. 20 that had patches of ice and snow from subfreezing temperatures.
Inside the truck, police found 15,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and seized $1,950 in cash, according to court records.
He was indicted in Deschutes County, charged with driving under the influence of intoxicants and possessing with intent to distribute a controlled substance.
At the time of his arrest, he was on probation after being convicted for eluding police in a chase at speeds up to 160 mph in April 2021 in Yreka County, California. The chase ended only when officers flattened his BMW tires with spike strips. He was found with marijuana, $19,580 in cash and a Glock pistol with an extended clip, according to police reports.
But even while he awaited trial in the Deschutes County case and with a suspended license, he sped off from Portland police in November 2022 and again in October 2023 in a black Mercedes and was arrested both times.
In the October 2023 chase, he sped through a busy Lloyd Center parking lot and crashed into an occupied car and finally stopped when he hit spike strips that police dropped in his path, according to the federal prosecutor.
U.S. marshals arrested Reinoehl the next month, on Nov. 22, 2023, on a one-count federal indictment, charging him with possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, stemming from his 2021 Deschutes County arrest.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Sax said in court that it was highly unusual for his office to take over the two-year-old case, but federal prosecutors felt compelled to intervene.
“We took this case as a matter of public safety,” said Sax, noting that Reinoehl was the youngest defendant he’s prosecuted based on his age — 19 — at the time of his arrest in Deschutes County.
‘PRO CRIMINAL GUIDANCE’
Reinoehl pleaded guilty last year to the federal fentanyl charge and was sentenced late last month.
The judge pointed out that his difficulties started long before his father’s death. In fact, Baggio said, Michael Reinoehl contributed to his son’s problems.
“This is not a lack of youthful guidance,” Baggio said. “This is pro criminal guidance … from a person who was supposed to be providing you loving, positive support.”
Michael Reinoehl used drugs in the house in front of his son, she said.
“Smoked weed and did cocaine and acid sometimes,” Deaven Reinoehl said of his father in a deposition.
About a month before he was killed, Michael Reinoehl sent a text message that investigators found on his son’s phone, asking Deaven Reinoehl to get him a gun, Baggio noted.
“It chilled me to my bones,” the judge said. “That’s not what dads are supposed to do.”
Michael Reinoehl had written: “Sell me the gun for a quarter pound of weed and $100 I’m getting tired of this shit I need a piece now,” according to a police affidavit.
The judge highlighted other circumstances: A multi-year custody dispute over Deaven and his younger sister, his father taking both children to downtown protests “where there was such anger and such violence … exposing you to that danger in our city streets,” Baggio said.
By the time of Deaven Reinoehl’s federal prosecution, it was clear his life had “spun completely out of control,” Baggio said.
She said she had to weigh his difficult upbringing with the seriousness of his crimes.
He admitted to regularly transporting fentanyl from Phoenix, Arizona, to Oregon, where he would mark up the price of the fentanyl pills and sell them.
He was using marijuana and driving recklessly when stopped, according to the judge and prosecutor.
“That is really egregious behavior,” Baggio said, while also acknowledging: “You are not the same person today that you were then.”
She sentenced Reinoehl to two years and six months in prison – shorter than the prosecution’s recommendation of three years and 10 months but longer than the defense recommendation of two years.
His lawyer requested that Reinoehl serve the time at a low-level security prison in Ohio or Colorado. He will be on supervised release when his sentence ends, with access to transitional housing and mental health and drug treatment.
“I do wish you well,” Baggio said.
— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, [email protected], follow her on X @maxoregonian, on Bluesky @maxbernstein.bsky.social or on LinkedIn.