A New Castle man was sentenced in federal court to 37 months of incarceration followed by four years of supervised release on his conviction of violating a federal narcotics law, U.S. Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced.
Senior United States District Judge Arthur J. Schwab imposed the sentence Tuesday on 37-year-old Luis Rivera Otero.
According to information presented to the court, Otero was a member of an organized drug trafficking group that obtained kilogram quantities of cocaine via U.S. Postal Service parcels from Puerto Rico then sold them in western Pennsylvania and elsewhere as part of an ongoing drug trafficking conspiracy.
Rivera Otero was responsible for retrieving five parcels containing cocaine and delivering them to a co-conspirator in return for payment.
Otera was one of two New Castle men arrested in Lawrence County in March who pleaded guilty in July in federal court to charges of violating narcotics laws.
Kevin Tulla Torres, 28, pleaded guilty to distributing and conspiring to distribute cocaine, while Luis Rivera Otero, 37, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute cocaine.
Tulla Torres, with the help of Rivera Otero, managed a drug trafficking operation specifically in the New Castle and Lawrence County area, according to Olshan.
The arrests of Tulla Torres, Otero and another co-conspirator, as well as 14 others charged by separate indictment, resulted from a 13-month investigation into drug trafficking in and around Lawrence County. Local law enforcement rounded up most of the suspects and arrested them and charges were filed during an operation in mid-March.
Otero pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to distribute cocaine.
The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation leading to Rivera Otero’s conviction, in close collaboration with the Lawrence County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the FBI, the New Castle City Police Department, Ellwood City Police Department, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Union Township Police Department, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Pennsylvania State Police.
Lawrence County is one of six western Pennsylvania counties officially designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The county received its HIDTA designation in July 2022, allowing it to receive dedicated federal resources to coordinate federal, state and local governments in fighting drug trafficking and abuse.
