FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Lauren Horwood
October 7, 2011	PHONE: (916) 554-2706
www.usdoj.gov/usao/cae	usacae.edcapress@usdoj.gov
Docket #: 1:10-cr-00305-OWW

FRESNO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that Jesus Rodriguez Salcido, 23, an undocumented alien from Jalisco, Mexico, was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison for conspiring to manufacture, to distribute, and to possess with intent to distribute 6,540 marijuana plants. The prison sentence will be followed by a five year term of supervised release. Rodriguez Salcido was also ordered to forfeit a 9 mm Ruger firearm, a Ruger Speed Six .357 magnum handgun with a loaded magazine, and a Remington scoped rifle seized by drug agents during a raid of the grow site.

The case stems from an intensive Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation targeting the cultivation of marijuana on public lands. OCDETF is a focused interagency program investigating and prosecuting the most significant drug trafficking organizations throughout the United States by leveraging the combined expertise of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The OCDETF investigation was conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service, Kern County Sheriff's Office, Bakersfield Police Department, and the Southern Tri-County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Escobar prosecuted the case.

Rodriguez Salcido's sentencing followed his guilty plea in August to the drug conspiracy. In his plea agreement, he admitted that he was involved in the cultivation of approximately 6,540 marijuana plants on Bureau of Land Management land in the Piute Mountain area of Kern County. In addition to the firearms, agents also seized about one pound of processed marijuana.

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