Jury convicts three Northern California men of drug trafficking

A federal jury convicted three California men of multiple drug trafficking offenses, prosecutors said Thursday.

Luis Torres Garcia, 38, of Rio Dell (Humboldt County) was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Bay Point resident Evan Martinez Diaz, 31, was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Antioch resident Timothy Peoples, 44, was convicted on two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

Torres Garcia faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, prosecutors said, adding that he is at large after fleeing before the court’s verdict. Both Peoples and Martinez Diaz each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count they for which they were convicted.

During the eight-day trial for the three men, prosecutors introduced evidence that included wiretapped calls between April 2018 and February 2019 as part of a federal investigation into two drug suppliers in the East Bay. The intercepted calls also showed that both suppliers received their drugs from sources in Mexico, prosecutors said.

• Torres Garcia, according to prosecutors, was a Humboldt County drug trafficker who went by the nickname “Guero.” On Aug. 8, 2018, a drug supplier in Fairfield attempted to send Torres Garcia 18 pounds of meth, valued at $158,000, but the shipment was intercepted by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office on Highway 101 near Healdsburg. In February 2019, the DEA tracked Torres Garcia to a meeting in Windsor where he gave about $13,800 in cash to a courier for his drug supplier, prosecutors said. He attended the trial and closing arguments before fleeing.

• Prosecutors said that on Feb. 9, 2019, Martinez Diaz was transporting about 20 pounds of meth and 1 kilogram of cocaine through a neighborhood in Antioch when he noticed he was being followed by police and told an unnamed co-conspirator to dump the drugs in the bushes on a residential street. Martinez Diaz attempted to flee but was eventually stopped and given a traffic citation. According to prosecutors, he was intercepted on a call telling his drug supplier that he had seen law enforcement and dumped the drugs to avoid getting arrested.

• Peoples was arrested when law enforcement officers discovered cocaine in his home. Prosecutors said he was a regular customer of an Antioch-based cocaine dealer and bought 10.5 pounds of cocaine for more than $120,000 in a 90day period.

All three men are scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg on June 11.