News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2006

Bridgeport Woman Pleads Guilty to Cocaine Trafficking Charge

June W. Stansbury, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Kevin J. O’Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that ZULMA MATOS, age 41, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, pleaded guilty yesterday, September 21, before United States Magistrate Judge William I. Garfinkel in Bridgeport to one count of an Indictment charging her with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

According to documents filed with the Court and statements made in court, in June 2005, the Bridgeport DEA’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force commenced an investigation into a cocaine trafficking operation in Bridgeport, which eventually included court-authorized wiretaps of telephones used by certain members of the operation, and closed circuit television monitoring of an office used by the traffickers for narcotics-related activities. In pleading guilty, MATOS admitted that, from fall of 2005 to April 2006, she handled street level sales of cocaine for a narcotics trafficking operation managed and supplied by other co-conspirators. MATOS admitted that, as a result of her participation in the conspiracy, she was responsible for the trafficking of between 500 grams and two kilograms of cocaine.

MATOS and several others were indicted by a federal grand jury on May 2, 2006. She has been detained since her arrest on May 4, 2006.

MATOS is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Stefan R. Underhill on December 22, 2006, at which time MATOS faces a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum term of 40 years.

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Bridgeport High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, which includes the Stratford, Norwalk, Stamford, Greenwich, New Canaan, and Easton Police Departments.