BANGOR, Maine — A Connecticut man a federal judge said “used all his talents to deal drugs” was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to 22½ years in prison for running an oxycodone distribution ring in central Maine that extended to California, Connecticut, Arizona and Iowa.
Barry Diaz, 32, of Stamford, Connecticut, also was sentenced to four years in prison, to be served concurrently, for illegal use of a phone and to six years of supervised release. Diaz used the aliases “Lucky” and “Tonny Delacruze” between April and August 2011 when he oversaw a ring of a dozen people in Connecticut and Maine who bought, sold and distributed the prescription painkiller.
“I’m thankful I’m here because I should probably be dead by now,” an emotional Diaz told U.S. District Judge John Woodcock. “I stand before you a humbled man. I ask the court to please help me start again.
The defendant said that he is motivated to give back to the communities he has harmed. Diaz also urged society not to glorify drug dealers and young people not to follow his path.
“My debt to society is to help eradicate drugs,” he said. “I’m searching for a way to undo what I have done.”
Diaz, who has been held without bail at the Somerset County Jail since his arrest more than four years ago, has been a pioneer in bringing higher education to inmates at the jail, defense attorney Bruce Merrill of Portland said. He also created a seminar for inmates on domestic violence and made video for a restorative justice program aimed at youth.
Letters submitted in support of Diaz included one from Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster, the first he has written in support of a defendant in 40 years in law enforcement, Merrill said.
Woodcock described Diaz’s efforts at rehabilitation as “impressive.” The judge said that when he sentenced others that Diaz recruited into the conspiracy, he considered the defendant “the devil himself.” Woodcock said he thought Diaz’s future, because of his past, is up in the air.
“I think you’re a great salesman, but my question is since you met Mr. Merrill, have you been doing your greatest sales job ever?” Woodcock told Diaz. “Is this a conviction conversion or have you really changed?”
Merrill asked that Diaz be sentenced to between 15 and 20 years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Joyce, who prosecuted the case, urged Woodcock to sentence Diaz to something closer to 25 years on the conspiracy charge and four years, to be served concurrently, on the telephone charge.
“He came to Maine to exploit our opiate crisis,” Joyce told Woodcock. “His objective was to make money. He would sell any drug he could wherever he could.”
Joyce said that Diaz worked under the direction of Mark “Little Mexico” Razo, 25, of Los Angeles, California, who ran the operation from prison in that state. Through Razo, Diaz obtained a kilogram of cocaine for $29,000 and, in at least one instance, sold it in Maine for $36,000, according to the prosecution version of events to which Diaz pleaded guilty.
Razo is serving a 25-year sentence at a federal prison in Victorville, California. His earliest release date is Aug. 18, 2033, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate locator website.
He was serving a sentence for a drug conviction at a prison in Jamestown, California, when he contacted Diaz. Diaz traveled to Iowa, Arizona, California, Connecticut and Maine to obtain and distribute drugs, according to a previously published report.
Information about how Razo obtained cellphones while in prison was not revealed in court documents.
Wiretaps on Diaz’s phone showed that he called Razo once on May 7, 2011, and twice on July 26, 2011, the jury found. Using the phone to aid in the commission of a crime is illegal.
Diaz did not testify against Razo, according to court documents.
In June 2011, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Portland, who were monitoring the wiretap, learned that Razo had arranged for a 4-pound shipment of methamphetamine to Iowa, according to a press release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office after Razo’s conviction.
Diaz faced between three years and life in prison and a fine of up to $1 million on the drug charge. He faced up to four years in prison on the phone charge and a fine of up to $250,000. The time since his arrest in August 2011 will be credited toward his sentence.