United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEWARK, N.J. - John G. McCabe, Jr., Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New Jersey Division of the Drug Enforcement (DEA) and Paul J. Fishman, the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, announced that Frederick Sellers was sentenced today to 188 months in prison following his November conviction for conspiring to distribute cocaine in Camden and elsewhere.

Sellers, 36, was convicted of one count of cocaine distribution conspiracy following two hours of deliberation at the conclusion of a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb. The evidence at trial showed that Sellers had agreed with Mario Estrada-Espinoza and Jose Luis Grimaldo Valencia to distribute approximately 10 kilograms of cocaine between June 2008 and October 23, 2008. Among other things, Sellers was video and audio-recorded on December 9, 2008, paying Estrada-Espinoza $138,000 in a nighttime meeting at a Wal-Mart parking lot on Roosevelt Blvd. in south Philadelphia.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Bumb sentenced Sellers to five years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a $2,500 fine.

Both Valencia and Estrada-Espinoza previously pleaded guilty to a related conspiracy, and Valencia was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Estrada-Espinosa fled and remains a fugitive.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the DEA, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge John G. McCabe Jr.; the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office; the Mantua Township Police Department; the Cherry Hill Police Department; and the Camden Police Department for the investigation of this and related cases.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew T. Smith and Howard Wiener of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Camden.