MIAMI – A federal district judge in Ft. Pierce sentenced a husband and wife to federal prison yesterday for working with a foreign drug trafficking organization to distribute methamphetamine, opioids, and other controlled drugs purchased by customers from an online pharmacy. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon sentenced Vanessa Vanly...

Jacksonville, Fla. – Acting United States Attorney Sara C. Sweeney announced Brian Gregory Brightman (31, Jacksonville) has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of actual methamphetamine. Brightman faces a minimum sentence of 10 years, up to life, in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet...

SAN DIEGO – Marcus Ray Chavez was sentenced in federal court today to 262 months in prison for providing the fentanyl pills that resulted in the fatal overdose of a 15-year-old girl in 2022. According to court documents, on at least four occasions between September and November 2022, Chavez provided...

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. – Tyquan M. Watson, 28, and Dezaneil D. Cosby Jr., 27, both of Tallahassee, Florida, were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiring to distribute marijuana as part of a large-scale conspiracy distributing hundreds of pounds of marijuana per week. The guilty verdict, returned at the conclusion...

SAN DIEGO – Edgar Perez Villa, an alleged member of a Tijuana-based enforcement group for the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, commonly known as CJNG, was extradited from Mexico to the United States on Thursday and made his first appearance in federal court in San Diego today. Perez Villa was...

SAN DIEGO – U.S. District Court Judge Todd Robinson sentenced Lucresia Stone-Rojas of San Diego today to 86 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm on November 12, 2023, and possession with intent to distribute heroin on December 27, 2023. Stone-Rojas previously pleaded guilty in...

Tampa, FL – U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has sentenced Nicolas Garcia Hernandez 27, Shelbyville, Tenn., to 11 years and 3 months in federal prison for possessing with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. Garcia Hernandez pleaded guilty on November 13, 2024. According to court documents, Garcia Hernandez, who had...

MIAMI – On Jan. 30, 2025, a federal district judge in West Palm Beach, Fla., sentenced Anthony Raul Del Valle, 29, of Lake Worth Beach, Fla., to 10 years in federal prison. The sentence comes after a federal jury found Del Valle guilty of distributing acetyl fentanyl and fentanyl and...

SAN DIEGO – Alleged Sinaloa Cartel cell leader Octavio Leal-Hernandez, aka Chapito Leal, who is believed responsible for trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the United States from Mexico, appeared in federal court today following his extradition from Mexico yesterday. Leal-Hernandez was indicted by a federal...

TAMPA, FL – United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Jorge Hernan Gonzalez-Ortiz, 50, of Colombia, and Carlos Andres Aldana-Gil, 43, also of Colombia, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. Each faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. A sentencing date...