Segundo Garcia, stash house mastermind, pleads guilty
By P.T.
Published: December 3, 2013
A Prospect Park man, who ran stash houses, homes where packaging of heroin take place, in Paterson, has pleaded guilty, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
Segundo Garcia, 38-year-old, a resident of Prospect Park, pleaded guilty to charges of “possession of heroin with intent to distribute” under a plea deal that will likely result in a 15-year prison term. “Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that he be sentenced to 15 years in state prison, including six years of parole ineligibility,” according to the office.
Garcia, who also goes by the street name “Moreno,” was arrested in November 2012 during Operation Dismayed which resulted in the arrest 17 people connected to a massive illegal heroin distribution network that was being run out of the city. “Garcia and his associates were supplying multiple kilos of heroin per week to drug dealers in Paterson, which is where young addicts from the northern suburbs of New Jersey were coming to obtain heroin,” said John Hoffman, acting attorney general. “By putting drug kingpins like Garcia behind bars for lengthy terms, we are striking at the source of the poison that is fueling addiction and causing an alarming increase in overdose deaths among the very young.”
Garcia and his network were not low level street dealers, they were packaging large amount of illegal drugs, and selling them to dealers for distribution. Garcia was a wholesaler. “During the takedown of the ring in November 2012, detectives searched 10 houses and one vehicle, seizing three kilos of bulk heroin, another kilo of heroin packaged in thousands of glassine envelopes for individual sale, and about $255,000 in cash. The bulk heroin had a “wholesale” value of more than $300,000, and could have sold for $1 million or more once cut and packaged for sale on the street,” according to the office.
Much of the drug and cash found were inside two homes: 447 East 21st Street and 246 Maryland Avenue. “Workers clad in aprons and surgical masks worked at these and other locations to cut, process and package heroin for the network,” according to the office. “Garcia, a Dominican national, served more than five years in federal prison for drug dealing beginning in 2000. He was subsequently deported by federal immigration authorities, but re-entered the U.S. illegally and allegedly established his large-scale heroin distribution network in Paterson. “
Garcia’s sentencing is set for February 7th, 2014.