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Ramona Cruz will have to serve out the entire 3½-year sentence because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.
Cruz and her brother, Ramon DeJesus, were busted in 2005 with more than 6½ pounds of cocaine that had been flown in through Newark Airport by an unidentified associate from the DR, authorities said.
DeJesus took a deal from the government rather than face trial, pleading guilty to a drug charge. He has since served his sentence, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip Sellinger said.
Cruz also pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute the cocaine, Sellinger said on Thursday, Sept. 15. In exchange, she was sentenced in 2007 to 40 months in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release.
Federal authorities allowed Cruz to voluntarily surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the U.S. attorney said.
Three days before that was to happen, Cruz “cut off her ankle bracelet and fled to the Dominican Republic to avoid prison, where she remained a fugitive until her recent apprehension,” Sellinger said.
The U.S. attorney credited special agents of the Marshals Service and the federal Homeland Security Investigations’ Cherry Hill and Newark offices for Cruz’s capture.
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