ALBUQUERQUE - Eugene Daniel Gonzalez, 38, of Phoenix, Ariz., was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 84 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his methamphetamine trafficking conviction.
Gonzalez was arrested on Dec. 2, 2016, on a criminal complaint charging him with committing a methamphetamine trafficking offense in March 2016, in Hidalgo County, N.M. According to the complaint, law enforcement officers found two bags containing an aggregate of 938.7 grams of crystal methamphetamine in a vehicle in which Gonzalez was a passenger.
On April 11, 2017, Gonzalez pled guilty to a felony information charging him with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. In entering the guilty plea, Gonzalez admitted that on March 25, 2016, he was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped for speeding in Hidalgo County. Gonzalez further admitted that officers who searched the vehicle found approximately 938 grams of methamphetamine in a suitcase in the vehicle.
This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the DEA, the HIDTA Regional Interagency Drug Task Force/Metro Narcotics Task Force and the New Mexico State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark A. Saltman of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office prosecuted the case.
The HIDTA Regional Interagency Drug Task Force/Metro Narcotics Task Force is comprised of officers from the Las Cruces Police Department, the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, HSI and the New Mexico State Police. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) which provides assistance to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States and seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production by facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
