BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- A Bellingham couple has been sentenced in federal court for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Jose Perales-Venegas, 33, and his wife Nereyda Yasmin Perales, 26, were arrested in April following a drug deal with an undercover police officer.
“They were suspicious that drugs might be running through there or that the people that work or run the restaurant might be involved in drug trafficking, and they were just suspicious of it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Redkey said.
Redkey explained how the wife got involved.
“It was time to deliver the two kilos of cocaine and the defendant had to go to work at the El Cazador, and he was pacing wondering how he was going to get to work and get to Bellingham to do the deal, and his wife said, ‘listen, I’ll go to Bellingham for you,’” he said.
Perales-Venegas was sentenced to five years in prison and Perales received a ten month sentence in U.S. District Court is Seattle.
Perales-Venegas will also be deported.
Noting that Perales-Venegas was working at the El Cazador restaurant in Burlington, the federal judge presiding over the case, Marsha Pechman, said drug trafficking through such restaurants in Whatcom and Skagit counties is “rampant.”
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