OMAHA, Neb.-United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that on September 16, 2020, United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. sentenced Leonel Dario Blanco-Sanchez to a term of imprisonment of 80 months. Blanco-Sanchez will serve a 5-year term of supervised release following his release from the Bureau of Prisons. There is no parole in the federal system.
Blanco-Sanchez, 21, was convicted of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine with Samantha Perez-Juarez in the Omaha area between September of 2019 and January of 2020. Blanco-Sanchez, of Arizona, transported multi-pound quantities of methamphetamine from sources of supply in Arizona and California to Omaha on at least five occasions throughout the fall of 2019 and into January of 2020. Blanco-Sanchez and Perez-Juarez received direction from Mexico-based co-conspirators with whom they maintained contact, traveling in Blanco-Sanchez’s pickup truck bearing Army Veteran license plates to deliver methamphetamine to customers in Omaha.
On January 8, 2020, the Nebraska State Patrol stopped and arrested Blanco-Sanchez and Perez-Juarez as they returned to Omaha from Arizona. A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed approximately 13 pounds of methamphetamine which was seized by law enforcement.
Blanco-Sanchez served in the U.S. Army Reserve with the 387th Engine Company, an Army Reserve unit in Scottsdale, Arizona, and was deployed to Iraq for one year in 2018 and 2019.
Co-defendant Perez-Juarez is pending sentencing in the same case.
The case was primarily investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Safe Streets Task Force, and the Nebraska State Patrol.