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Fourteen years was the best that Ricardo Clavijo, 42, of Egg Harbor Township could get from a plea deal with the federal government. He'll have to serve just about all of it, too, because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.
Clavijo’s brother, Christopher Gonzalez of Pleasantville, is up for sentencing next.
The brothers had more than 20 kilos combined of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine stored in Clavijo’s basement when the DEA led a raid of the place in July 2021, authorities said.
Divided by drug, it came to nearly 24 pounds of cocaine, a dozen pounds of fentanyl and 9½ pounds of heroin, they said.
Some of the heroin was already packaged in 30,000 individual doses ready for street-level distribution, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
Members of the strike force also reported seizing a .45-caliber handgun, a loaded magazine for the weapon, a 9mm 50-round drum magazine and $8,457 in cash.
They also found drug packaging materials and a money-counting machine, according to a DEA complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Camden.
A few weeks earlier, it says, agents watched Gonzalez drive a box truck to the home, load it with empty drug packages and discard them at a municipal dump along with used cellphones.
Some of the phones were in their original boxes with the phone numbers scrawled on them, agents said.
Rather than risk the potential consequences of a trial – namely, a possible life sentence upon conviction -- Clavigo took what he could get from the government, pleading guilty to major drug charges in federal court in Camden in April 2022.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew B. Johns of Sellinger's Criminal Division in Camden secured the deal.
In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb sentenced Clavijo to five years of supervised release.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy in October 2022. He’s still awaiting sentencing, Sellinger said.
Assisting the DEA's Atlantic County HIDTA Task Force were members of the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office’s Gangs, Guns & Narcotics Unit and the Atlantic County SWAT team, along with Egg Harbor and Linwood police.
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