United States Drug Enforcement Administration

JAN 15 - LOS ANGELES - A “keyholder” who oversaw the criminal activities of the Azusa 13 street gang and its long-running plot to violate the civil rights of African-Americans in the City of Azusa was sentenced to 235 months in federal prison. Santiago Rios, also known as “Chico,” 48...

CLEVELAND - A federal grand jury returned a 42-count indictment against 13 people who are accused of participating in a large-scale heroin trafficking ring in the Ashtabula areas and resulted in the overdose death of an Ashtabula resident last year. The unsealing of the indictment was announced today by Steven...

ASHLAND, Ky. - A federal jury convicted a Florida doctor of conspiring with a pain clinic owner and others to illegally prescribe hundreds of thousands of pills to Kentucky residents. The Ashland jury convicted 57-year-old Dr. Clara S. Rodriguez-Iznaga of conspiracies to distribute controlled substances, and to launder money. The...

DEC 6 - LOS ANGELES - Law enforcement authorities this morning arrested 18 defendants named in three federal grand jury indictments stemming from Operation Roman Empire, a 2½-year investigation into South Los Angeles street gangs allegedly controlled by a Mexican Mafia member who directs criminal activities through his daughter. A...

CINCINNATI - Nancy Sadler, 49, of West Portsmouth, Ohio was sentenced to 210 months in federal prison for operating Ohio Medical and Pain Management, LLC, a “pill mill” in Waverly, Ohio. Her husband, Lester, aka “Ape”, Sadler, 56, was sentenced to 151 months in prison followed by three years of...

CLEVELAND - The leader of a multi-state drug conspiracy that sent millions of dollars worth of highly addictive prescription painkillers to all 50 states was sentenced to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution, said Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. Attorney for the Northern...

CLEVELAND - A federal jury convicted three people of crimes related to a multi-state drug conspiracy that sent millions of dollars’ worth of highly addictive prescription painkillers to all 50 states, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. With today’s guilty verdicts, 13 people...

PONTIAC, Mich. - A Pontiac man was sentenced to life in prison today for his role in a 2010 murder for hire plot that began in Pontiac, Michigan, and ended with a violent shooting death in Littleton, Colorado, U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced today. Joining McQuade in the announcement...

LOS ANGELES - A dozen people associated with a chain of nine marijuana stores that operated across Orange and Los Angeles counties were arrested this morning on federal drug trafficking charges. The 12 arrested are among 14 people named in a 14-count indictment returned last week by a federal grand...

LOS ANGELES - A federal grand jury has returned a superseding indictment that charges 16 defendants with being part of a drug trafficking organization that illegally obtained and distributed more than 900,000 OxyContin pills obtained in part through fraud against public insurance programs such as Medicare. One of the defendants...