JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A convicted California drug trafficker who paid bribes to a corrupt Drug Enforcement Administration agent has been sentenced by a Florida choose to greater than 11 years in federal jail.
U.S. Lawyer Roger B. Handberg stated in a information launch Tuesday that a choose in Jacksonville, Florida, imposed the sentence on Francisco Gonzalez Benitez, 37, of Orange, California. Gonzalez Benitez pleaded responsible to drug and cash laundering prices in April.
Courtroom paperwork present Gonzalez Benitez admitted transport giant portions of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine from California to Jacksonville and Little Rock, Arkansas, between 2016 and 2019.
Prosecutors say Gonzalez Benitez additionally had labored as an informant for DEA Agent Nathan Koen and paid the agent 1000's of dollars in bribes to assist present “prime cowl safety” for the drug operation.
For instance, investigators say Koen informed the drug seller when to keep away from shipments within the mail, when to vary his telephone quantity and whether or not regulation enforcement was wanting into him or his prospects.
Koen pleaded responsible in Arkansas federal courtroom in August 2021 to a bribery cost and was sentenced in Might to 11 years and three months behind bars — the identical sentence as Gonzalez Benitez. A brother of Gonzalez Benitez additionally pleaded responsible to drug and different prices and acquired a 10-year jail sentence.
The FBI started investigating Koen in 2018. He transferred from Jacksonville to Little Rock in 2016.
The drug trafficker had paid Koen $31,500 earlier than he started cooperating with the FBI, prosecutors stated. Koen was arrested after prosecutors stated the FBI recorded him accepting a $9,000 bribe from the trafficker inside a Las Vegas on line casino.