SAN FRANCISCO — A 22-year-old Oakland woman who commonly drove to the Tenderloin to sell fentanyl, occasionally bringing her teenage sister or young child together with her, was sentenced to just about two years in federal prison, in response to court records.
According to court documents, Juleisy Moncada-Flores was arrested last yr during an undercover police investigation in San Francisco after she showed as much as a drug deal together with her 2-year-old daughter in tow. The arrest quickly made headlines, and prosecutors added to the outrage by revealing that she had also commonly brought her 16-year-old sister to “work” on the Bay Area's best-known open-air drug market and that the 2 were trafficking drugs had business together.
“Both were previously arrested on federal drug charges in San Francisco and continued to sell drugs together until their respective arrests. “The officers began making controlled narcotics purchases from them,” prosecutors said in court papers, referring to each the teenager and Moncada-Flores.
But Moncada-Flores' lawyer says there may be a more sympathetic side to the story, which the U.S. Attorney's Office has also acknowledged. Moncada-Flores is from Honduras and witnessed her grandfather's murder in her home country when she was 11 years old. She became a mother at 15 and had her second child at 19 before being arrested within the case two years later, in response to a defense filing.
“When this offense occurred, she was in an abusive relationship with a drug dealer who yelled at her, beat her and put the lives of her and her children at risk by stealing from his suppliers, leaving Ms. Moncada-Flores on the hook for it “Assistant Federal Public Defender Angela Chuang wrote in the sentencing. “Because of all that she has been through, as a victim of human trafficking, she is entitled to immigration relief in the form of a T visa, the application for which will be filed shortly after this memorandum and will be pending at the time of sentencing.”
Prosecutors wrote a sentencing memorandum saying they agreed she regretted selling drugs and acknowledged that her “difficult and traumatic” past contributed to it. They asked for a 35-month sentence and wrote in court papers that Moncada-Flores “can be rehabilitated and has likely been sufficiently deterred from making the same decision again.”
“Despite this, Moncada-Flores participated in drug trafficking. No matter how difficult her circumstances, she had a choice, just like the many others like her who came from similar backgrounds and chose not to turn to crime,” the government's sentencing statement said. “Although she was trying to support herself and her family, her decision to sell drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl in the Tenderloin was a selfish decision that exacerbated the ongoing and devastating misery in our communities.”
U.S. District Attorney James Donato announced the sentence at a court hearing last month. Moncada-Flores will receive credit for the yr she spent behind bars while her case was pending, records show. After serving her sentence, she might be released on supervised release.
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