News
Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2006
Contact: Special Agent Ramona Sanchez
Public Information Officer
(602) 664-5725
Truck
Driver Sentenced for Hauling Marijuana
TUCSON – Timothy
J. Landrum, DEA Special Agent-in-Charge and Paul K. Charlton, U.S.
Attorney today announced that Martin Antonio Campa-Corella, 34, of
Mexico, was sentenced yesterday to 121 months imprisonment and 60 months
supervised release, by United States District Judge John M. Roll, in
Tucson.
On June 1, 2005,
the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested Campa after Border Patrol
agents discovered 4,293 pounds of marijuana in the tractor-trailer
the defendant was driving. The defendant had been stopped at a Border
Patrol checkpoint on I-19 near Amado, Arizona. The truck contained
pallets of tomatoes from the floor to the ceiling near the door of
the truck, but behind the boxes of tomatoes agents discovered 183 bundles
of marijuana valued between 2 and 3.4 million dollars.
When questioned
by agents, the defendant claimed that he was working for a trucking
company. Campa further stated that he had looked in the back of the
trailer before driving the truck, but he claimed he did not see any
marijuana and that he did not notice a difference in the handling of
the truck with the extra 4,293 pounds of marijuana. The defendant stated
that he intended to deliver the truck to an unknown address, which
he purported to belong to a produce company in Phoenix, Arizona. Follow-up
investigation revealed that the trucking company did not exist. Furthermore,
when agents traced the Arizona Department of Transportation number
listed on the truck, the search revealed that the identification number
was registered to a church in South Carolina.
On June 8, 2005,
the Grand Jury indicted Campa for Possession with Intent to Distribute
approximately 1,951 kilograms of marijuana. On June 1, 2006 a jury
found Campa guilty of the charge in the indictment.
The investigation
in the case was conducted by the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration.
The prosecution
was handled by Celeste Corlett, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of
Arizona.
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