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SAN JOSE —A federal judge sentenced a former Santa Cruz man this week to more than 19 years in prison on drugs charges stemming back to a 2019 Eastside county narcotics team bust.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Enforcement Team found Paul Matthew Garcia, now 34, and another individual on the afternoon of July 15, 2019, in a Soquel Avenue hotel with nearly 4 pounds of narcotics. The 3.75-pound cache, located on the 1700 block of Soquel Avenue, included cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, marijuana and prescription pills with a combined estimated street value of $102,000, according to a release from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office at the time. Also recovered by detectives were a loaded .40-caliber handgun, drug sales paraphernalia and more than $9,000 in cash.
“Disrupting drug trafficking in Santa Cruz County is a priority for our office,” U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey was quoted in an agency release issued Tuesday. “Anyone who traffics drugs in Santa Cruz County, or anywhere else in the Northern District, particularly while armed, should know that federal criminal convictions come with serious prison time.”
Garcia’s prison term for possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine, which will run parallel to a separate 26-year prison sentence already underway, was handed down by United States District Judge Edward J. Davila on Monday as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
After Garcia’s February 2020 federal indictment, he was released on a $100,000 bond and later failed to report to jail after violating terms of his release. According to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Northern District Office, Garcia remained a fugitive from justice for more than a year, until his arrest by Sunnyvale police officers in April 2021. Prior to his apprehension, Garcia reportedly fled through a hotel and fired two shots at officers in pursuit before being taken into custody.
In his plea deal, codified in December, Garcia admitted to possession of, with intent to distribute, the methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin found in his Santa Cruz motel room, as well as possession of a semi-automatic pistol, failure to report to the Santa Rita Jail facility and remaining a fugitive from justice.
Garcia’s prior Santa Cruz County gang, drug sales and weapons criminal record dates back to at least 2010, with multiple convictions in between.
Originally published at Jessica York