H.B. man sentenced to federal prison for role in drug-brokering scheme

A Huntington Beach man was sentenced Thursday to five years and eight months in federal prison for his role in a drug-selling operation allegedly involving a Santa Ana psychiatrist, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

William Jason Plumley, 41, pleaded guilty Oct. 9 to one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

“As I have been sitting here in jail, so unbelievably destroyed, looking back with a sober mind, I realize how wrong and incredibly stupid my choices were,” Plumley said in a letter submitted before sentencing to U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford.

In the statement, Plumley acknowledged his former substance abuse problem and described his success in getting sober, while taking responsibility for his crimes and expressing remorse.

“For the first time in over 25 years I have really begun to look at what I have done, how drug addiction has truly wasted my life,” Plumley wrote. “Today I am the man I was trying so incredibly hard to once again become, which is 100% sober.”

Plumley was a co-defendant in a federal case against Dr. Robert Tinoco Perez, 56, of Westminster, who was arrested June 29 and charged with drug distribution. Perez was accused of providing prescriptions to Plumley and other brokers, knowing the drugs were to be sold, as well as issuing prescriptions to Plumley in the names of patients whom Perez had never met or examined.

Perez is awaiting trial.

The case is the result of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Costa Mesa Police Department, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

julia.sclafani@latimes.com