Angel Flores, 31, pled guilty to attempting to possess more than 500 grams of cocaine for distribution. Flores was charged in Portage, WI, and was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson to 12 years in federal prison.
Flores pled guilty in Dec. 2024 alongside Juan Ojeda, 31, from West Allis, WI. Ojeda was sentenced by Judge Peterson to one year in federal prison for possessing cocaine intended for distribution.
Flores and Ojeda fell under suspicion in late 2022 after agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating a large cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking organization operating in the Western District of Wisconsin.
During the investigation, agents intercepted communications between Flores and his cocaine and methamphetamine supplier in California. Investigators determined Flores was obtaining multiple kilograms of cocaine and large amounts of methamphetamine and selling it throughout western Wisconsin, including Madison, Portage and La Crosse.
Investigators caught Ojeda travelling to Chicago at the order of Flores to meet with a courier sent by their supplier in January 2023. Ojeda received 12 kilograms of cocaine in that meeting and transported it across state lines back to Wisconsin. In February of the same year, agents additionally intercepted phone communications between Flores and others relating to a load of cocaine that was meant to be delivered to Illinois. They were able to intercept the drug shipment in Arizona before it got to the Midwest.
During the sentencing, Judge Peterson expressed his concern about the large quantity and geographic scope of the trafficking organization led by Flores. He observed that Flores had brought multiple kilograms of cocaine into Wisconsin on a regular basis over the period of multiple years, with distribution spanning over two-thirds of the state.
Judge Peterson indicated that the 12-year sentence for Flores’s leadership role in “some of the highest level of dealing in this district” was intended to convey that drug trafficking in this volume will not be tolerated. In sentencing Ojeda, Judge Peterson imposed a one-year sentence after observing that Ojeda had a limited role in the trafficking organization, no significant criminal history and had withdrawn from participating in the organization on his own, before police intervened.