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Port Chester resident Christian Fernandez was sentenced to 204 months in prison after pleading guilty in December last year to conspiring to distribute heroin and possessing firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking between 2017 and 2018.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said that between 2017 and 2018, Fernandez led a transnational criminal organization that trafficked drugs and guns in Port Chester and other locations throughout the United States.
Fernandez received kilograms of heroin from a supplier in Mexico and headed a network of co-conspirators who helped distribute the drugs for profit in different parts of the United States.
Berman said that In addition to trafficking drugs, Fernandez also operated a firearms business, through which he sold and possessed at least six guns, five of which were operable.
In one sale, on Dec. 12, 2017, Fernandez sold a 7.62 millimeter AK-type rifle with evidence of discharge in the barrel and a 20-gauge shotgun, both operable, along with nearly 450 grams of heroin mixed with fentanyl for the total price of $25,600.
In addition to his prison term, Fernandez was sentenced to five years of supervised released and ordered to forfeit $570,000, including $51,869 in cash that was seized from his residence on the day of his arrest.
"Cristian Fernandez was a leader of a transnational criminal organization that trafficked illegal guns and drugs," Berman said. "Today he was handed the lengthy prison sentence his crimes deserve.”
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