Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : 3 Charged With Sales of Drugs Near a School
Three men have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges they sold cocaine and heroin across the street from Lathrop Intermediate School.
The men, all three illegal immigrants from Mexico, were indicted this week under the federal “School Yard Law,” which doubles all penalties and provides a minimum prison term of one year for anyone convicted of distributing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Bryant-Deason.
Jose Luis Figueroa, 35, Ramon Godinez, 28, and Raul Rivera, 28, were charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine and heroin, Bryant-Deason said. Figueroa was also charged with illegal possession of a firearm, she said.
Because of the “School Yard Law,” enacted in 1986, the three men each face a possible maximum prison term of 80 years without the possibility of parole, Bryant-Deason said.
The arrests were made by agents of the California Justice Department’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement after the trio allegedly sold an undercover agent a kilogram of cocaine on Feb. 8 at a home in the 1100 block of Broadway, Bryant-Deason said. There was no allegation in the seven-count indictment that the men sold drugs to students, she said.
Inside the house, authorities found 25 individually wrapped packages, totaling 29.5 grams of heroin, Bryant-Deason said.
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