NEWS RELEASE
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
BETH PHILLIPS
Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106
www.justice.gov/index.html
MAY 26, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES MAN INDICTED FOR POSSESSING
MORE THAN 1,000 POUNDS OF MARIJUANA
FOR DISTRIBUTION
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Los Angeles, Calif., man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute after state troopers seized more than 500 kilograms of marijuana in a highway interdiction near Kearney, Mo.
Alfonso Rivera-Perez, 55, of Los Angeles, was charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, May 25, 2010. The federal indictment replaces a criminal complaint that was filed against Rivera-Perez on May 11, 2010.
The indictment alleges that Rivera-Perez was in possession of marijuana on May 10, 2010. According to an affidavit filed in support of the original criminal complaint, Rivera-Perez was driving a Freight Liner tractor and towing a 53-foot trailer on Interstate 35. Commercial Motor Vehicle inspectors assigned to the scales near Kearney ordered the truck to stop for an inspection. When officers searched the trailer, the affidavit says, they found 88 bundles that contained marijuana and weighed a total of 563.3 kilograms.
Rivera-Perez told officers that he had driven the from Los Angeles to Yuma, Ariz., where the trailer was loaded, then to Missouri. According to the affidavit, the bill of lading indicated that Rivera-Perez was to deliver the freight on the truck to Des Moines, Iowa.
Phillips cautioned that the charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stefan C. Hughes. It was investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
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