North Carolina Drug Dealer Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison

February 26, 2010 - CHARLESTON, WV—A North Carolina drug dealer was sentenced to 188 months in prison today for drug conspiracy and for witness intimidation. Hugo Santamaria, 30, of Monroe, North Carolina, was convicted on November 19, 2009, of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and two counts of witness intimidation. The conviction stems from a long term investigation by members of the Central West Virginia Drug and Violent Crime Task Force in Summersville, West Virginia.

According to trial witnesses, Santamaria supplied individuals in Nicholas, Preston, and Monongalia Counties with cocaine and marijuana from 2001 until June 2006. On March 15, 2006, task force agents executed a search warrant at a residence in Birch River, West Virginia where they recovered approximately one kilogram of cocaine, cash, packaging and weighing paraphernalia and numerous firearms. Also present at the residence were Zackary Scott Bergdorf, 34, of Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, James Lewis Frame, 34, of Birch River and Roger Dale Skaggs, 52, also of Birch River. Bergdorf, Frame, and Skaggs pled guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia in 2007 and identified Santamaria as their supplier of marijuana and cocaine.

Santamaria was also found guilty of two counts of witness intimidation for making threats against individuals and/or their family members which he believed would cooperate with authorities or would testify against him at trial.

Investigators lost track of Santamaria shortly after he threatened a witness on February 28, 2007. However, on June 1, 2007, border patrol officers arrested Santamaria at the Port of Entry at Presidio, Texas when he was caught smuggling approximately 216 pounds of marijuana into the United States.

United States District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr. presided over the proceedings.