Week in Review : EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN THE NEWS : CRIME : ‘Know I Committed a Crime,’ Cocaine Dealer Admits to Judge at Sentencing

“I know I committed a crime and have to be punished,” a 39-year-old Laguna Hills resident told the judge, who sentenced him to 20 years in prison for his role in a 100-kilogram cocaine deal.

Daniel Serrano’s wife and sister wept as U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson gave him the maximum sentence last Monday, saying: “I remain convinced you were a participant, and not a minor participant, in a very major drug operation.”

Serrano, a former Xerox executive, was arrested in December in El Toro after federal agents followed him to Los Angeles and watched him load boxes of cocaine into his Toyota van. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intention to distribute cocaine.

The arrest preceded the largest cocaine confiscation in county history on April 4. Los Angeles police arrested nine South Americans in Placentia and Los Angeles County for possessing 1,784 pounds of cocaine worth about $500 million. Charges against two of the nine have since been dropped, while the remaining defendants are awaiting trial in North Orange County Municipal Court.