A jury found a Grand Forks man guilty Wednesday of selling hundreds of grams of methamphetamine and of pistol whipping an acquaintance.
Jose Luis Delacruz, 37, was convicted of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and of brandishing a firearm during a drug trafficking crime following a three-day jury trial that ended Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Fargo, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of North Dakota.
Delacruz was one of five people charged in federal court in the conspiracy case. The other four took plea deals, in which they pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute methamphetamine in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Delacruz and his co-conspirators moved more than 500 grams of methamphetamine since around January 2013, according to court papers.
His co-conspirators would obtain the meth from Delacruz and then sell the drug primarily in the Grand Forks area, the news release says.
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Delacruz was arrested by Grand Forks County sheriff's deputies last June after eluding law enforcement for months. An arrest warrant was initially issued for Delacruz in March 2014 after he and Patrick James Peltier-one of the four who took a plea deal in the case-allegedly robbed, beat and abducted an acquaintance they believed to be cooperating with police. The victim was abandoned on the side of a rural road in the freezing cold, but was later picked up by two strangers, who drove him back into Grand Forks, court papers say.
The drug conspiracy charge could put Delacruz behind bars for life, according to the news release. Delacruz is also facing a mandatory seven-year sentence for the firearm charge, which will be added on top of any time he receives for the drug charge, the release says.
Delacruz is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 3 in Fargo.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the man who was pistol whipped. He was an acquaintance.
