TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram and
Criminal Justice Director Deborah L. Gramiccioni
announced that a Bronx, N.Y., man was sentenced
to state prison today for operating a major
heroin mill in Jersey City.
The
defendant was 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.
According
to Director Gramiccioni, Joseph Agramonte,
34, of the Bronx, N.Y., was ordered by Superior
Court Judge Melvin S. Kracov in Hudson County
to serve 14 years in state prison, with seven
years of parole ineligibility. The sentence
was based on Agramonte’s March 4 guilty
plea to maintaining a heroin production facility
and possession of heroin with intent to distribute,
charges contained in a Dec. 18, 2007 state
grand jury indictment.
Deputy
Attorney General Philip Mogavero handled the
case for the Division of Criminal Justice
Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau. Agramonte
was in charge of the heroin mill. Four other
defendants, all from the Bronx, N.Y., previously
pleaded guilty to assisting him in the operation.
On
Oct. 31, 2008, Rafael Richiez, 29, Lenin Torres,
24, and Pedro Torres, 23, were each sentenced
to 10 years in state prison with four years
of parole ineligibility by Judge Kracov. Each
man pleaded guilty to first-degree possession
of heroin with intent to distribute and second-degree
conspiracy. Rudy Torres, 35, pleaded guilty
on Feb. 26 to those same charges and was sentenced
on April 9 to 10 years in state prison, with
four years parole ineligibility.
Detectives
and federal agents seized more than three
pounds of heroin and $9,488 in cash when they
raided the apartment 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. Pedro Torres left
the apartment soon after, along with Agramonte
and Rudy Torres. 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."
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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