Two people, both with no criminal record, were caught in November east of Bayfield with 66 pounds of methamphetamine in their car.

One was sentenced to probation as part of a plea agreement with the 6th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The other was offered the same plea deal, but a different judge rejected it, and said it was almost like prosecutors “didn’t know how much drugs there were.”

The cases raise obvious questions.

Why would two defendants caught in possession of 66 pounds of meth be offered probation? And, why would one judge approve such a plea deal and another reject it?

District Attorney Christian Champagne defended the plea deals given the context of the two cases. The efforts of law enforcement that land cases like these on his desk often entail more than meets the public eye, he said. Prosecutors must consider how evidence was collected and if it was done legally, weighing that against the chance that key pieces of evidence could be thrown out.

As for why one judge would accept a plea agreement and another would reject a similar deal, he said sometimes that is “luck of the draw.”

On the afternoon of Nov. 8, a Colorado State Patrol trooper pulled over a car on U.S. Highway 160, just east of Bayfield. Trooper R.A. Howell, with CSP’s Smuggling and Trafficking Interdiction Section, stopped the car for weaving and impeding traffic after observing the vehicle traveling at 44 mph in a 60 mph zone.

According to the arrest affidavits, another CSP trooper immediately arrived on the scene, followed by a La Plata County Sheriff’s Office deputy with K-9 unit.

The officers separated Doris Beltran, the driver, and Juan Valadez-Nuñez, the passenger, and inquired as to their destination. The two gave different answers, which officers used as reasonable suspicion to hold the vehicle while the K-9 unit sniffed the vehicle.

The dog alerted officers to the presence of narcotics, which they used as probable cause to search the vehicle. A CSP trooper found several packages of methamphetamine hidden in the trunk of the vehicle, totaling just over 66 pounds.

Joey LaVenture, commander of the Southwest Drug Task Force (which was not involved in the seizure), said the narcotics were worth about $200,000 in bulk, or $1.5 million when sold by the gram.

The purpose of the Smuggling and Trafficking Interdiction Section is to prevent human and drug smuggling on state highways, however, the scope of its work in La Plata County is unknown.

Multiple requests to CSP for comment about this case and the extent of smuggling prevention in the county went unanswered.

The initial plea deals offered to the defendants – one which was accepted by District Judge Nathaniel Baca, and the other rejected by District Judge Suzanne Carlson – have turned some heads.

LaVenture, who said he was not familiar with the specific circumstances of the case, said he would generally expect a stiffer sentence than probation.

“Just looking at 66 pounds alone, you’d be thinking a several-year prison sentence would be more appropriate,” he said.

The charges were pleaded down from a class 1 drug felony, which carries a presumptive sentence of eight to 32 years in prison. Beltran also initially faced a second felony charge for possessing a firearm during the crime.

Similarly situated people have landed in federal court, Carlson noted.

“Those sentences that they receive are, you know, years, many, many years,” she said. “… I’m not saying it has to be a prison sentence, I haven’t heard all the things about her (Beltran) and her children and all the things that are important here, but what I can tell you is, is that I’m not going to accept a plea agreement that has only probation as an option.”

Baca, in contrast, accepted the plea agreement with little in the way of comments. A presentence investigation completed by the probation department found that Valadez-Nuñez demanded very little in the way of oversight.

Champagne first noted the defendants’ lack of any criminal history, combined with the likely circumstances by which they landed in the situation, led to the plea deals. Beltran and Valadez-Nuñez appear to be drug mules, he said, rather than high-level operatives involved in drug smuggling operations.

“Sometimes, there’s more to the story than we’re able to reveal,” he said.

But the real complicating factor appears to be the quality of the evidence in the case.

Although he was careful not to wade into specifics, Champagne said that large-scale investigations – the type that CSP’s STIS unit might undertake – can produce information about individual drug mules moving through the county. Law enforcement’s desire to protect a cooperating witness or obscure the larger scale of an investigation may have played a role in the bust.

The arrest affidavits are scant with respect to details of the circumstances that led to the stop.

The fact that a trooper with CSP’s smuggling unit initiated a traffic stop for an offense as minor as weaving and impeding traffic – and that the vehicle was carrying 66 pounds of methamphetamine – may be too coincidental to ignore. The legality of that stop would be called into question during a trial.

“There’s always things to take into consideration like the validity of the police-citizen encounter, the stop, (and) whether there’s evidence that will be suppressed,” Champagne said. “So the strength of the case was – and the lack of criminal history was – the reasoning behind offering Mr. Valadez-Nuñez a probation offer.”

When his office examined the case skeptically, Champagne said, “we felt like there were some real challenges.”

But in the absence of an airtight case, it is up to independent judges to use their discretion.

“The amount of drugs is egregious, and that’s why I think Judge Carlson is taking the approach that she’s taking,” Champagne said. “Because it’s hard, it’s really difficult to look past it. And it’s very frustrating for us as prosecutors, when we see a large amount of drugs being transported through our county, to not be able to really dig in and get after it.”

After Carlson rejected the plea agreement with Beltran, prosecutors worked out a second deal. The new agreement, which has been accepted, leaves the door open for Carlson to sentence Beltran to up to five years in prison.

Beltran is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 31.

rschafir@durangoherald.com