FRESNO, Calif. — A federal grand jury recently returned a 13-count indictment against 12 individuals for drug trafficking offenses, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. The defendants are:
- Carlos Javier Felix Lopez, 42, of Fresno
- David Michael Marin, 61, of Fresno
- Angel Delgadillo Sr., 62, of Fresno
- Ronal Van Warsinger, 35, of Fresno
- Demar Edward Marshall, 32, of Fresno
- Quintin Brown, 45, of Fresno
- Kenneth Lorenzo Pratt, 28, of Seattle, Washington
- Armando Acosta Toro, 62, of Fresno
- Rodrigo Savalza, 54, of Salinas
- Jose Guadalupe Bojorquez, 40, of Fresno
- Monica Gutierrez, 37, of Mendota
- Julio Cesar Moreno Garcia, 42, of Hesperia
According to court documents, Lopez was a large-scale broker and distributor of controlled substances operating in the Fresno area. Lopez utilized a network of drug trafficking associates throughout California (including in Fresno County, Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County, and Monterey County) and in Mexico to source, transport, and distribute controlled substances on his behalf.
Lopez conspired with two drug traffickers based in Mexicali, Mexico to supply him with kilogram quantities of narcotics for further distribution to his wholesale customers, including Marin, Toro, and Savalza, in Fresno County, Monterey County, and elsewhere. Lopez conspired with Gutierrez to store and distribute narcotics on his behalf in Fresno County and utilized Bojorquez to transport narcotics from Southern California to the Central Valley of California for further resale by Lopez. Moreno Garcia conspired with Lopez and one of the Mexican sources of supply to distribute narcotics to Gutierrez and Savalza.
Marin, a wholesale distributor of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and prescription pain pills (including oxycodone), obtained narcotics from a variety of sources, including Lopez, Delgadillo, and Toro, and distributed them to drug dealers based in Fresno, Washington and elsewhere. Marin conspired with Warsinger and Marshall to distribute cocaine in Fresno, and conspired with Brown, Pratt, and others to distribute prescription pills, including Oxycodone, in Washington and elsewhere.
This case is the product of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Fresno Police Department’s Major Narcotics Unit with assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, the United States Marshals Service, the California Department of Justice HIT Team, the Kings County Sheriff’s Department, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, the Salinas Police Department, and the El Monte Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Spivak is prosecuting the case.
If convicted, the defendants face a range of maximum sentences, including up to life in prison. Several of the defendants also face a range of mandatory-minimum sentences ranging from between five to 10 years in prison. Any sentence, however, would be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. The charges are only allegations; the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
This case was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). The OCDETF Program was established in 1982 to conduct comprehensive, multilevel attacks on major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation’s drug supply.
