LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A Pacoima woman was sentenced Wednesday, Sept. 5, to nearly four years behind bars for running a stash house and moving cash for a San Fernando Valley drug ring that used a fleet of cars and a staff of drivers to make instant heroin and cocaine deliveries.
Jacqueline De La Rosa, 25, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to serve three years of supervised release — to include 20 hours per week of community service and drug testing conditions — following her 46-month term in federal prison.
De La Rosa was involved in the conspiracy for six months last year after accepting an offer from the ring’s leader, the brother of her then-boyfriend, according to defense attorney Lawrence Jay Litman. De La Rosa was paid between $500 and $750 per week to maintain the stash house and act as a money courier.
The defendant declined to make a statement in court.
“This is a serious offense,” Anderson said from the bench, adding that De La Rosa had been
“entrusted with significant amounts of heroin and cocaine and drug proceeds.”
De La Rosa pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances. The federal charge carries a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence, but the defendant qualified for the
“safety valve” provision in federal sentencing guidelines that authorizes a lower penalty for certain nonviolent, non-managerial drug offenders with little or no criminal history.
De La Rosa was among seven people arrested in December in connection with an indictment targeting “Manny’s Delivery Service.” All 14 defendants have pleaded guilty.
While the service sold small quantities to telephone customers, conspirators sold larger quantities to other dealers as part of a high-volume drug ring, officials said.
During a two-month period that began in late August 2017, members of the ring obtained multi-pound quantities of black-tar heroin from Mexico and moved hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, according to secretly recorded conversations outlined in the indictment. Bulk narcotics were stored in De La Rosa’s stash house, and smaller quantities of drugs were packaged and dispatched to addicts from a Van Nuys facility, federal prosecutors said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said authorities seized about 14 pounds of heroin, more than a pound of cocaine and a significant amount of cash during the takedown last year.
Sigifredo Gurrola Barrientos, 40, of Sylmar, who managed the operation and oversaw the movement of narcotics and the delivery fleet, faces sentencing in October.