Drug Trafficking Prison Sentence

On November 21st, a Phoenix man was sentenced to serve 78 months in federal custody by a federal district court judge. On March 4th, following a jury trial, the man was found guilty of possession with intent to distribute 255 pounds of marijuana. This conviction stemmed from the man?s arrest by rangers in August, 2003. They had followed the tracks of a vehicle that had illegally entered the U.S. ? and the park ? from Mexico and had stopped the car on State Route 85. Although the driver claimed that he?d entered the United States legally and was in the area bird-watching, a park canine alerted to the presence of drugs in his Cadillac Escalade. Rangers searched the Cadillac and found the marijuana in a luggage compartment on the top of the car. At the trial, the man said that he?d been vacationing in Mexico and had been forced by unknown Mexicans to drive north from the international border towards Phoenix with the load of marijuana on board. The jury found that he knowingly and intentionally possessed the marijuana with the intent to distribute. The criminal investigation was conducted jointly by Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents, National Park Service rangers and a NPS special agent.