L.A. Trafficker Pleads Guilty to Heroin Charges

A Los Angeles-based distributor for a Mexican drug-trafficking ring that flooded the United States with highly potent heroin has pleaded guilty to charges that could carry a penalty of more than 100 years in prison, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Oscar Hernandez, 36, of Panorama City pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Monday to drug trafficking and possessing pure heroin with intent to distribute it, authorities said.

He was among nearly 200 suspects arrested nationwide in June 2000 after a yearlong investigation, dubbed Operation Tar Pit, by the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI.

The operation was launched after an upsurge in overdoses attributed to the high-powered heroin in Chimayo, N.M., a community about 20 miles north of Santa Fe.

The ring allegedly grew opium poppies in the Mexican state of Nayarit, processed it there into black-tar heroin and smuggled it in vehicles across the California and Arizona borders to Los Angeles.

Using the Los Angeles-based distribution network run by Hernandez, authorities said, traffickers then sold the heroin in 19 states.

“This organization quite literally distributed poison on our streets by peddling heroin of extraordinary potency,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Lisa Feldman, the lead prosecutor on the case, said Tuesday. “As a result of Operation Tar Pit, the Hernandez organization was completely dismantled from top to bottom and, like other drug traffickers, these defendants will be severely punished.”

Fifteen of the suspects--including Hernandez’s wife, Marina Lopez, 40--were arrested in Los Angeles.

Lopez, who has also pleaded guilty, was believed to be responsible for recruiting drug couriers and arranging for their transportation, authorities said. She faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced in October.

Federal officials are also seeking extradition of Hernandez’s brother, Isaias Hernandez, 37, and another defendant, Angel Hernandez (no relation), from Nayarit.

Oscar Hernandez is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 22 by U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder. He faces up to 120 years in federal prison.

His attorney, Nicholas De Pento of San Diego, said he believed that Snyder would look favorably on his client’s decision to plead guilty.

“I am hoping for a reduced sentence,” De Pento said. “I think a judge looks more fairly on a defendant when he accepts his responsibility.”