Man sentenced to prison for drug dealing
A Dominican national who used to live in Lawrence has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison after police found more than 10 kilos of fentanyl and heroin at his drug stash house.
Carlos Soto-Villar, 34, a Dominican national formerly living in Lawrence, was sentenced last week to 188 months in prison and five years of supervised release. He will be subject to deportation proceedings after completing his sentence.
Soto-Villar in October was convicted by a federal jury of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin and 400 grams or more of fentanyl.
According to the trial testimony, Soto-Villar on Dec. 6, 2018, supplied a kilogram of fentanyl to a codefendant. The kilogram of fentanyl was seized by police a day later.
Then a search at the Methuen apartment used by Soto-Villar and a different codefendant as a drug stash house resulted in the seizure of more than nine kilograms of fentanyl and heroin and drug processing equipment. Soto-Villar fled from the apartment, and police apprehended him a short distance away.
Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Mendell and Brian Boyle, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration for the New England Field Division, made the announcement. Assistance was also provided by the Massachusetts State Police and the Methuen Police Department.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Ferguson, deputy chief of Mendell’s Narcotics and Money Laundering Unit, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Linda Ricci, chief of the Narcotics and Money Laundering Unit, prosecuted the case.
The operation was conducted by a multiagency task force through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.