Federal Sentence : 20-year mandatory minimum
Offense: Possession with intent to distribute in excess of 5 kilograms of cocaine; Career Criminal Enterprise
Date of Sentencing: 1995
Date of Birth: 1973
Priors: None
Projected Release Date: 2012

Nature of Offense : Local police and the DEA discovered that Juan, his brother Roberto, and 9 others were selling from their housing project in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.  Through testimony from a confidential informant, videotape surveillance, controlled buys, and drugs seized through searches, the authorities determined that the 11 codefendants were responsible for a total of five kilograms of cocaine.  Juan was charged with being the organizer/leader of a drug trafficking organization and a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE).  The 11-count indictment also included charges of inducing a person under 18 years of age to sell drugs and selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a public school. 

Juan accepted responsibility for all of the drug charges, except for his portrayal as an organizer/leader of a conspiracy (he was arrested with only 12.4 grams of cocaine).  He went to trial to prove that all of the defendants in the case participated equally in selling small drug quantities, but his argument was unsuccessful and he was convicted.  The most serious of the charges, the CCE charge, triggered his 20-year mandatory sentence.

Sentences of Others Involved:   Juan’s brother Roberto is the only other person involved in the conspiracy also serving 240 months.  The others in the conspiracy received sentences ranging from 12 months to 30 months. 

Judge’s Remarks :  The Honorable Hector M. Laffitte of the District of Puerto Rico called the case a “tragedy” due to Juan’s young age (21 years old) at the time of sentencing: “[It] is the youth of this defendant when viewed in the light of the severe, stiff provisions of the sentencing guidelines and the statute that makes this case tough and difficult and sad.”  According to Judge Laffitte, Juan unwisely refused a 10-year plea bargain because he was “young” and “cocky.”  Judge Laffitte said, “[One] has to pass sentence in this case with a heavy heart because of the youth of this defendant, but that’s what the law says, and that’s what I have to do.”

Personal Background :  Juan was raised with his six brothers and sisters in a public housing project in Puerto Rico. His parents separated when he was eight years old after years of extreme domestic violence. Juan’s mother, overwhelmed by the pressures of raising seven children in extreme poverty, provided little supervision or guidance. By the time Juan was twelve, his mother abandoned them and moved in with a boyfriend. When Juan was in the fifth grade, he dropped out of school and spent most of his time smoking marijuana with his brothers.  By the age of thirteen, he had developed a $20-per-day heroin and cocaine habit.

 Juan’s PSR states, “The lack of proper parental guidance is believed to have contributed to the development of emotional problems, drug addiction and anti-social behavior.”  Juan’s youngest brother committed suicide because of emotional and drug abuse problems less than a year before Juan’s arrest.  Juan fathered his first child, a daughter, in 1993 at the age of nineteen. His second child, a son, was born two years later and was an infant when Juan went to prison.

Compiled from PSR and sentencing transcript     3/1/01 dl