The U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Phillip Sellinger, said that Jose Gonzalez, 51, and his partners took dozens of commercial planes from Philadelphia International Airport to get to San Juan.
The U.S. attorney said that they paid cash for several kilos of coke there and then sent it to different places in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey using overnight delivery from U.S. Post Office branches in San Juan. He said that the drugs were usually sent in three-pound packages or boxes.
A member of the plot then sold the drugs to sellers in the Philadelphia area for a profit, according to Sellinger.
As a result of Gonzalez’s arrest, agents took $120,000 in cash from his home and a 9mm handgun from an auto shop in Philadelphia that he ran.
Three of the people charged would rather take deals from the government than risk the possible effects of being found guilty at trial.
In 2011, Gonzalez told the U.S. District Court in Camden that he and some other people had more than 220 pounds of cocaine that they planned to sell.
There is no parole in federal jail, so Gonzalez has to serve at least 85% of his sentence.
Gonzalez was given a jail sentence by U.S. District Judge Christine P. O’Hearn on May 14, along with five years of supervised release and was told to give up the gun, the cash, and the Dodge Ram 3500 pickup.
Sellinger gave credit to employees of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Philadelphia Division, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General’s Northeast Area Field Office, the FBI’s Atlantic City Resident Agency’s Newark and Philadelphia field divisions, and both the Philadelphia and New Jersey State Police for their work on the investigation that led to the guilty pleas and sentences obtained by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick C. Askin of his Criminal Division in Camden.
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