The probation officer also recommended a two-level enhancement for maintaining a drug-involved premises, based on Hernandez's procurement of the marijuana delivery point. This quantity set his base offense level at 32. Hernandez confessed to both enterprises and eventually pled guilty to federal cocaine charges in exchange for the Government's agreement not to prosecute him for the marijuana offenses.Īt sentencing, however, the probation officer recommended that Hernandez be sentenced based on all 28 kilograms of cocaine. Hernandez and his supplier then charged off the transaction and apparently forgot about the matter until four months later, when the DEA confronted Hernandez about his role in the cocaine delivery and his position as a marijuana distributor. Hernandez did so, but he also called his subordinates and chastised them for refusing to take the cocaine.Ī few hours later, Hernandez's subordinates informed him that the DEA had confiscated the cocaine and arrested those involved. Hernandez then volunteered to get on the internet and see if he could find out what happened. The supplier also informed Hernandez that the operation had found other people to receive the shipment because Hernandez's subordinates did not want to do the job. Concerned that police had interdicted the shipment or that his cocaine distributor's underling had absconded with it, the supplier divulged the names of the people involved. Soon afterward, the supplier called Hernandez with a problem: The cocaine was missing.
Hernandez needed to pick up only the 2 kilograms from the “shipping place” for the bulk transaction. “Ashamed,” the supplier offered to satisfy this debt by giving Hernandez 2 kilograms of cocaine from a 28-kilogram shipment set to arrive in Kentucky. The supplier, in turn, paid him at a rate of $5,000 a shipment for most of these efforts, but fell behind on payments at a certain point. On at least three occasions, Hernandez procured an abandoned warehouse in Madison County, Kentucky, as a delivery point for 1,000-pound shipments of marijuana. Hernandez was a marijuana distributor for an unknown drug supplier. The judgment below is AFFIRMED.įor the most part, the facts in this case are undisputed. The district court was not persuaded, and neither are we. He also objects to a two-point enhancement he received for maintaining a drug-involved premises. If held responsible for the entire shipment, he seeks, in the alternative, a minor-participant reduction for his reduced role in the conspiracy. Hernandez objects to this finding and insists that he should be sentenced based solely on the 2 kilograms he was slated to personally receive. At sentencing, the district court held Hernandez responsible for all 28 kilograms because he volunteered to locate the whole shipment after it had gone missing prior to delivery. Hernandez was to receive the 2 kilograms from a larger, 28-kilogram shipment of cocaine as payment for an outstanding debt. Pablo Hernandez pled guilty to conspiring to distribute 2 kilograms of cocaine. 17-5448 Decided: January 17, 2018īEFORE: ROGERS, McKEAGUE, and WHITE, Circuit Judges. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.