Mexican man residing in NM sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison for trafficking methamphetamine

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico — A Mexican man residing in New Mexico was sentenced Wednesday to 145 months in federal prison for trafficking methamphetamine, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Joel Dominguez-Morales, 41, was arrested May 6, 2015, on a criminal complaint charging him with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and participation in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Lea County, New Mexico. Dominguez-Morales and four co-defendants were later indicted on a charge of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Lea County in May 2015. His co-defendants include Javier Amador-Flores, 49; Maria Marcelina Cardoza-Burciaga, 40; Jose Manuel Trujillo, 41; and Myrna Orozco, 32, a U.S. citizen.

On Sept. 4, 2015, Dominguez-Morales pleaded guilty to the indictment and admitted to participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.  

Cardoza-Burciaga and Orozco previously pleaded guilty to participating in the methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy. Amador-Flores elected to proceed to trial and was found guilty July 20, 2016. The evidence at trial established that Amador-Flores participated in the methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy by receiving and storing shipments of methamphetamine at the residence he shared with Orozco. Other members of the conspiracy distributed the methamphetamine in Lea County. 

According to court documents, on May 1, 2015, an undercover agent arranged to purchase methamphetamine from Trujillo. On May 6, 2015, Trujillo informed the undercover agent that Dominguez-Morales would be delivering the methamphetamine to the agent. Thereafter, Dominguez-Morales met with the undercover agent at a restaurant in Hobbs, New Mexico, and directed the agent to meet him at an abandoned bar in a rural area outside of Hobbs where a woman would deliver the methamphetamine. Later that day, law enforcement officers arrested Dominguez-Morales and Cardoza-Burciaga near the abandoned bar and seized nearly four kilograms of methamphetamine. 

Cardoza-Burciaga was sentenced Aug. 17, 2016.

Orozco faces a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and Amador-Flores faces a statutory mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison. Amador-Flores and Dominguez-Morales will be turned over to ICE custody after they complete their prison sentence to be placed in removal proceedings.

Trujillo has yet to be arrested and is considered a fugitive. The charges against Trujillo are merely accusations and he is presumed innocent unless found guilty in a court of law.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Lea County Drug Task Force, with assistance from the Yoakum County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office assisted in this investigation. 

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brock Taylor and Matthew Beck, District of New Mexico, are prosecuting this case.

The Lea County Drug Task Force is comprised of officers from the Lea County Sheriff’s Office, Hobbs, Lovington, Eunice, Tatum and Jal police departments, and is part of the New Mexico HIDTA Region VI Drug Task Force. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) , which provides assistance to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States and seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production by facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.