A 46-year-old Mexican national has been sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison for his involvement in a marijuana and methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy in El Dorado and Placer counties.
U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb on Monday sentenced Adrian Ortega-Diaz of Michoacan, Mexico, one of 12 people in a drug trafficking conspiracy that involved multiple firearms, and significant quantities of marijuana and methamphetamine, according to a federal Department of Justice news release.
According to court documents, Ortega-Diaz acted as a manager of a conspiracy to grow marijuana on public lands and to distribute marijuana and methamphetamine in Northern California. He and his co-conspirators were charged with running two marijuana grows, one in El Dorado County and one in Placer County, on public land, with each containing more than 1,600 plants. Investigators seized a number of firearms and more than 3,300 marijuana plants, plus several pounds of high-grade methamphetamine in Elk Grove and the Stanislaus County community of Denair.
Ortega-Diaz is the second to the last defendant to be sentenced in this case. Sentences for others involved in the conspiracy have ranged from time served to a prison term of 11 years and five months.
The last defendant in this case, Miguel Villa-Contreras, is to be sentenced Sept. 19.
The case resulted from an investigation by the California Department of Justice and the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.
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