A Colombian man was convicted yesterday in Howard County Circuit Court of possessing heroin. Police found $500,000 worth of the drug in his car during a traffic stop last year on Interstate 95.
Alberto Puente, 49, was sentenced to five years by Judge James B. Dudley after he pleaded not guilty to possessing with intent to distribute heroin but agreed to the state's statement of facts.
Ricardo D. Zwaig, Puente's lawyer, presented no argument.
Prosecutor Brendan Clary said that on June 25 last year, Maryland Tfc. Shaft Hunter pulled over Puente's speeding Mitsubishi Galant traveling north on I-95, near Route 100.
Puente told the trooper, "No habla ingles." His passenger, Jairo Leonardo Gonzalez, acted as a translator. The men said they were traveling from Florida to New York.
Hunter wrote Puente a warning for speeding and told him that he was free to go. The trooper then asked Puente if he would consent to a search of the car and advised him several times that he was free to leave -- a message that Clary said was translated by Gonzalez.
Puente consented to the car search, and he opened the car's trunk and hood for the trooper, Clary said.
A state police corporal and a trooper with a K-9 drug detection dog then arrived, and the dog alerted troopers to the possible presence of a controlled substance near the front of the car.
About the same time, the corporal saw loose screws around the bottom area of the dashboard, indicating a hidden compartment, Clary said.
The corporal removed the panels and found two packages secured with duct tape and containing a brown powdery substance that was later determined to be three-quarters of a kilogram of heroin, Clary said.
"This was an usually large amount of drugs for this county or for any other," Clary said after the conviction.
After Puente was convicted, the state did not prosecute him on the two other charges he faced, trafficking heroin and possession of a large amount of narcotics.
The defense had made a motion to suppress the drugs as evidence, arguing that valid consent was not given to search the car. Zwaig is appealing Judge Dennis M. Sweeney's ruling to deny the motion. Before Dudley imposed sentence, Zwaig said Puente made a "real bad choice" and was a vulnerable target for heroin traffickers because he needed money. Puente's wife became paralyzed after a car accident, and his two children dropped out of school for financial reasons, Zwaig said.
"He is essentially a mule," Zwaig said. Zwaig told Puente, who lives in Miami, that he probably would be deported after he serves his sentence.
Gonzalez, 25, of Miami Beach, faced the same charges as Puente. The state did not prosecute him because of insufficient evidence, Clary said.
