ALBUQUERQUE - Jason Gene Lay, 35, of Park Hill, Okla., was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 60 months in prison for his conviction on a methamphetamine trafficking charge. Lay will be on supervised release for three years after completing his prison sentence.
Lay was arrested on March 28, 2016, on a criminal complaint charging him with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute on Feb. 11, 2016, in Chaves County, N.M. According to the complaint, law enforcement agents seized approximately 53.4 grams of crystal methamphetamine, three handguns, $4,000 cash and drug paraphernalia when they executed a search warrant at a hotel room in which Lay had been residing.
On Sept. 14, 2016, Lay pled guilty to a felony information charging him with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. In entering the guilty plea, Lay admitted that on Feb. 11, 2016, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on his hotel room, and found methamphetamine hidden in false compartments inside two canisters, $4,000 and three handguns. Lay further admitted that he planned to distribute the methamphetamine.
This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of the DEA and the Chaves County Metro Narcotics Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Terri J. Abernathy of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office prosecuted the case.
The HIDTA Chaves County Metro Narcotics Task Force is comprised of investigators from the Roswell Police Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and the Chaves County Sherriff’s Office. 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
