FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Lauren Horwood
December 12, 2011	PHONE: (916) 554-2706
www.usdoj.gov/usao/cae	usacae.edcapress@usdoj.gov
Docket #: 1:10-CR-384-AWI

            FRESNO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that today United States District Judge Anthony W. Ishii sentenced Jose Miguel Lizarraga Lopez, 22, of Atwater, to four years and three months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release, for conspiring to cultivate and distribute marijuana.

            According to court documents, at the time of his arrest on August 28, 2010, Lopez was living on a farm in Merced County that was being used by him and others to cultivate more than 48,000 marijuana plants inside a cornfield. He pleaded guilty to the crime on November 14, 2011.

            Co-defendant Juvenal Paredes Sanchez pleaded guilty on April 11, 2011 and was sentenced on July 25, 2011 to four years in prison.

            This case was the product of a joint investigation by the Merced Mariposa High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, made up of members of the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office, California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, California State Parole, and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Assistant United States Attorneys Yasin Mohammad and Kathleen A. Servatius prosecuted the case.

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