Meth dealer to return to prison

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WORTHINGTON — A 55-year-old Adrian man who in 2001 was sentenced to 88 months in prison pleaded guilty to controlled substance sale Monday for the fourth time since 1998.

Alberto Fuentes Cruz, who has lived in various southwest Minnesota locations, also has convictions for perjury, driver’s license fraud and driving while impaired.

Cruz is hoping to get a prison sentence of 51 months, while the prosecution will argue for 61 months.

Cruz admitted he had been to prison before for selling methamphetamine.

“Did I send you?” Judge Jeffrey Flynn asked.

“Yes,” Cruz replied, adding he had been sentenced in 2001.

“Well, it didn’t take you long to get back in the headlines,” Flynn stated.

Cruz said he was “just a middle man” when it came to the meth deals involving an undercover agent.

“I didn’t have a job and had to pay my bills,” Cruz explained. “So I did a wrong thing.”

“Everybody in the Western world has to pay their bills,” an unsympathetic Flynn retorted. “But they don’t sell meth to do it.”

Cruz claimed he only received $40 for his middle man services during a deal that involved two 8-balls (approximately 7 grams) of meth. For a second deal Cruz allegedly helped facilitate, he said he didn’t get any cash.

“I didn’t have nothing to do with it — I just told him he could do it for me,” Cruz stated.

Impatiently, Flynn told Cruz to step down from the witness stand.

“To call this behavior stupid is an insult to stupid,” the judge stated.

Sentencing will take place after until a pre-sentence investigation is complete.

Tags: news, meth, dealer, drugs