ALBUQUERQUE - Kenneth Matthew Adame, 25, of Las Cruces, N.M., was sentenced yesterday in federal court to 60 months in prison for his methamphetamine trafficking conviction. Adame will be on supervised release for four years after completing his prison sentence.
Adame and co-defendants Ricky Joe Garcia, 53, and Christopher Michael Sanchez, 25, both of Las Cruces, were arrested in April 2017, and were charged by criminal complaint with participating in a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy on April 10, 2017, in Dona Ana County, N.M. According to the complaint, on that day, Adame, Garcia and Sanchez sold approximately 497.22 grams of methamphetamine to undercover law enforcement agents.
On June 21, 2017, Adame pled guilty to a felony information charging him with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, and admitted that on April 10, 2017, he conspired with his co-defendants to distribute 497 grams of methamphetamine.
Sanchez pled guilty to methamphetamine trafficking charges on July 19, 2017, and was sentenced on Nov. 27, 2017, to 60 months in federal prison followed by four years of supervised release. Garcia pled guilty to methamphetamine trafficking charges on Aug. 2, 2017, and is pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. At sentencing, Garcia faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years and a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment.
This case was investigated by the Border Enforcement Security Taskforce of Homeland Security Investigations and the HIDTA Region VII Drug Task Force, a multi-agency task force that conducts long term investigations targeting regional, national and international drug trafficking organizations that operate in Luna, Hidalgo and Grant counties and follow-up on cases resulting from U.S. Border Patrol and New Mexico State Police interdiction efforts. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brock E. Taylor of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch 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
