Amsterdam Man Pleads Guilty to Trafficking Cocaine

ALBANY, NEW YORK – Matthew Clark, age 32, of Amsterdam, New York pled guilty on May 17, 2016 to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian.

Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe is scheduled to sentence Clark on September 12, 2016. Clark faces at least five years in prison and up to 40 years in prison, a fine of up to $5 million, and at least five years and up to a life term of post-imprisonment supervised release. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.

During the plea hearing, Clark admitted that he recruited at least one other person to accept packages of cocaine mailed from Puerto Rico to the Capital Region which he collected for redistribution. On October 2, 2014, federal law enforcement officers watched a letter carrier deliver a package to a house in Amsterdam. After the package was delivered, Clark walked up to the porch, picked up the package, and placed it under his sweatshirt. When an Amsterdam police officer arrived, Clark threw the package into the brush on the side of the street. The package contained 571 grams of cocaine inside a DVD player.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Amsterdam Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth R. Rabe.