Man Found With 33 Pounds Being Processed for Sale in Eureka Sentenced to Over Seven Years in Prison
Press release from US Attorney’s Office Eastern District of California:
Arturo Alcazar-Tapia, 22, of Eureka, was sentenced [Friday] to seven years and three months in prison and ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution for conspiring to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute marijuana and for depredation of public lands and resources, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.
According to court documents, Arturo Alcazar-Tapia and his brother, Isidro Alcazar‑Tapia, 26, of Eureka, conspired to grow more than 20,000 marijuana plants at two sites in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Trinity County. The marijuana was packaged for distribution at a house in Eureka. On August 4, 2014, law enforcement executed a search warrant at the defendants’ home in Eureka and found 33 pounds of processed marijuana divided into one-pound packages and more than $6,000 in cash. At a cultivation site at Big French Creek, agents located and destroyed approximately 7,980 marijuana plants and arrested co‑defendant Ricky Martin Huerta, 21, of Eureka. At a site at Hobo Gulch Road, agents located and destroyed approximately 13,642 marijuana plants. The marijuana cultivation caused significant damage to the land and natural resources of the forest that provides habitat for several threatened and endangered animal species.
At the Big French Creek site, agents observed hundreds of holes dug in the dirt containing soluble fertilizer, bags of trash, empty fertilizer bags, propane tanks, and water lines diverting water from a stream into the marijuana garden. Analysts estimate that cleaning the Big French Creek site will cost the U.S. Forest Service more than $4,000. Agents observed similar destruction at the Hobo Gulch Road site. Analysts estimate that cleaning the Hobo Gulch Road site will cost the U.S. Forest Service approximately $13,000.
All three defendants pleaded guilty in January 2015. On June 16, 2015, Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. sentenced Ricky Martin Huerta to two years and eight months in prison, and on August 7, 2015, Judge Burrell sentenced Isidro Alcazar-Tapia to 87 months in prison and ordered restitution of $17,000. A fourth defendant, Victor Manuel Alvarez‑Contreras is currently a fugitive.
This case was the product of an investigation by the U.S. Forest Service, the Humboldt County Drug Task Force, the North State Marijuana Team, and the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Christiaan Highsmith prosecuted the case.
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How much of the confiscated cash and restitution money will be put towards the clean up of that site and others like it?
Illegals no doubt, enjoying being criminals in a sanctuary state, and a criminal paradise for those illegally in the country, formally called the late broken failed state of bankrupt California. State of Jefferson time.
But the give a ticket to two people with 1.1 pounds of heroine.
Kym. Thank you for stating the judge’s name. That is helpful when they come up for re-election.
Mexicans have shallower pockets than the Bulgies … they shoulda just bought some land and eliminated most of the Fed aspect … we don’t hear much bout the land owning Eastern European growers in the news … yet they are raping our area for millions in profit … profit making it’s way back to Eastern Europe and no doubt into the hands of those involved with the trafficking of women and the dealing of hard drugs.
Gotta luv our commercial black market cannabis society. Give some more dirty money to local schools Ronzo, maybe those kids will bring you beers someday!!
7 years the year before it become legal? If it was for messing up the land, that’s different!