Man sentenced to federal prison for drug trafficking
By Dan Thesman on Thursday, August 11th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
SPOKANE – Aurelio James Gonzalez, 30, of Kennewick was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Spokane for two counts of distribution of methamphetamine. He was sentenced to a total of 120 months in federal prison and ordered to serve a five-year term of supervised release. Gonzales plead guilty on October 27, 2021.
According to court documents, in September 2021, DEA Tri-Cities, in partnership with the METRO Drug Task Force, identified Gonzales as a pound-level methamphetamine trafficker operating in the Tri-Cities area and elsewhere. Through the use of a confidential source, DEA conducted several recorded meetings with Gonzales as well as two separate controlled buys, where Gonzales sold the confidential source at total of approximately two pounds of methamphetamine.
On February 17, 2021, a federal search warrant was executed at his residence in Kennewick where Gonzales lived with his significant other and two small children. Gonzales had taken one of those small children with him when he sold the methamphetamine to the DEA confidential source. When DEA executed the search warrant, agents located and seized cocaine, a digital scale, $14,805 in U.S. currency, ledgers about how to engage in money laundering, and a total of three firearms. Most of these items were located near a “Santa Muerte” shrine, which is commonly associated with drug trafficking.
