Boise Man Sentenced to 151 Months for Distributing Meth

POCATELLO—Ruben Moreno Sanchez, 36, of Boise, Idaho, was sentenced in federal court in Pocatello to 151 months in prison for possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of actual methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill also sentenced Sanchez to five years of supervised release and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service. He pleaded guilty to the charge on June 26, 2012.

According to the plea agreement, on August 7, 2011, a bail bondsman contacted Sanchez at a Boise motel. During that contact, Moreno told the bail bondsman that he had a pound of methamphetamine in his motel room, and that he was going to sell it to pay the balance he owed on his bond. The information was relayed to law enforcement, who executed a search warrant on Moreno’s motel room. During the search, officers found 134.7 grams of actual methamphetamine. Moreno admitted that he possessed the methamphetamine with the intention of distributing it.

Sanchez and co-defendant Cesar Urrea-Naverette, 34, a Mexican national, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Pocatello on October 25, 2011. Urrea-Navarette is set for trial on December 4 at the United States Courthouse in Pocatello.

The indictment was the result of a joint investigation of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, in conjunction with Idaho State Police and Boise Police Department. Other federal agencies participating in the OCDETF program include the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Marshals Service.

The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.