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For Immediate Release:  
For Further Information:
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October 31, 2008  

Peter Aseltine
609-292-4791

Office of The Attorney General
- Anne Milgram, Attorney General
Division of Criminal Justice
- Deborah L. Gramiccioni, Director

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Three New York City Men Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison in Connection with Jersey City Heroin Mill

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TRENTON – Attorney General Anne Milgram announced that three Bronx, N.Y., men were sentenced to state prison today on drug and conspiracy charges resulting from an August 2007 raid on a major heroin mill in Jersey City.

The three defendants were among five men arrested in August 2007 when the New Jersey State Police, the Division of Criminal Justice and members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force executed a search warrant and discovered the heroin mill in an apartment on Clinton Avenue in Jersey City.

Rafael Richiez, 28, Lenin Torres, 24, and Pedro Torres, 22, were each sentenced to 10 years in state prison with four years of parole ineligibility by Superior Court Judge Melvin S. Kracov in Hudson County. Each man pleaded guilty on Aug. 26 to charges of first-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute and second-degree conspiracy. Deputy Attorney General Philip Mogavero prosecuted the cases for the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau.

Detectives and federal agents seized more than seven pounds of heroin and $8,364 in cash when they raided the heroin mill on August 2, 2007. Prior to the raid, Richiez and Lenin Torres were arrested when they left the apartment building on Clinton Avenue and started to drive away in a stolen Range Rover which had been linked by investigators to prior drug trafficking activity. Pedro Torres left the apartment soon after, along with Joseph Agramonte, 34, and Rudy Torres, 35, both of Bronx, N.Y. They also were detained and ultimately arrested.

Further investigation revealed that an active heroin mill was being operated in the apartment building. A search warrant was executed and detectives found a large-scale heroin mill in the third-floor apartment capable of putting out many thousands of individual doses of heroin, known as “decks,” from the raw heroin on hand. Two grinding stations were set up, with cutting agents, boxes of empty plastic bags and thousands of packaged decks stamped "DOA."

The Division of Criminal Justice obtained a state grand jury indictment on Dec. 18, 2007, charging all five men arrested at the time of the raid with second-degree conspiracy, first-degree maintaining or operating a heroin production facility, first-degree manufacturing of heroin, first-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute, and third-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school.

The charges in the indictment remain pending against Agramonte and Rudy Torres. The indictment is merely an accusation and they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Attorney General Milgram credited all of the detectives and agents that conducted the investigation for the New Jersey State Police Drug Trafficking North Unit and Organized Crime Control Bureau - North; the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau; and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration HIDTA Task Force.

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