A federal judge in the District of Columbia sentenced a Mexican who overstayed a tourist visa to a year in jail for cocaine distribution.
Sergio Castillo-Lopez, 29, alias Sergio Chitel, was allowed entry into the U.S. in 2017 on the visa. Instead of leaving as required, he stayed at a residence in Northwest Washington from which he ran his cocaine dealing operation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said on Friday.
Castillo-Lopez was finally busted on Oct. 9, when law enforcement served a search warrant at his residence in the 3000 block of Warder Street NW.
Officers found nearly half a kilogram of cocaine, worth about $12,000 on the street, two scales and $3,126 in small bills “consistent with street-level drug proceeds.”
Some of the cocaine that was found had already been divvied up into sale-ready, gram-size bags, federal prosecutors said.
On Jan. 21, Castillo-Lopez pleaded guilty to a count of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute.
The judge on Friday also ordered Castillo-Lopez to serve three years of supervised release following his year in jail, and federal prosecutors said he agreed not to contest his deportation to Mexico following his jail term.
“This criminal will spend the remainder of his unlawful stay in the United States in a prison cell and will then face deportation proceedings,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said in her office’s release.
