Date: 04-12-2017

Case Style:

Case Number: 4:15-cr-00345-JD

Judge: James Donato

Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Laura Vartain Horn and Christiaan H. Highsmith

Defendant's Attorney: Rick Guzman

Description: San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Resident Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Methamphetamine Trafficking

Antoine Aroche, aka Antoine Aroache, was sentenced today to 120 months in prison for possessing with the intent to distribute methamphetamine announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent in Charge John J. Martin. The sentence follows a guilty plea entered January 25, 2017, in which Aroche admitted he did in fact possess with the intent to distribute the drugs.

According to his plea agreement, Aroche, 33, of San Francisco, acknowledged that on April 24, 2015, he met with a drug courier in a parking lot on Cesar Chavez Avenue in San Francisco. Aroche admitted he drove with the courier to a nearby location on Cesar Chavez Avenue where Aroche had a gray Nissan sedan waiting for him in another parking lot. The courier provided Aroche with about a pound of 96.8% pure methamphetamine hydrochloride, constituting approximately 431 grams of pure methamphetamine. Aroche carried the drugs to the gray sedan where he placed the methamphetamine inside the vehicle and walked away. Law enforcement officers conducted surveillance on the gray sedan until someone drove the car out of the lot and officers from the San Francisco Police Department stopped the car, searched it, and found the drugs under the driver’s seat.

A federal grand jury indicted Aroche on July 2, 2015. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, and one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1). Pursuant to his plea agreement, Aroche pleaded guilty to the possession count and the conspiracy count was dismissed.

The sentence was handed down by the Honorable James Donato, U.S. District

Judge. In addition to the prison term, Judge Donato sentenced Aroche to a 5-year period of supervised release. Aroche has been in custody since entering his guilty plea on January 25, 2017, and will begin serving his sentence immediately.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Laura Vartain Horn and Christiaan H. Highsmith are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Ana Guerra and Theresa Benitez. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the DEA and the San Francisco Police Department. This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, (OCDETF) a focused multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force investigating and prosecuting the most significant drug trafficking organizations throughout the United States by leveraging the combined expertise of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

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