SOUTH BEND – Saul Leal, 25 years old, of South Bend, Indiana, was sentenced, on April 8, 2022, by United States District Court Judge Damon R. Leichty on his plea of guilty of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine, announced United States Attorney Clifford D. Johnson.
Leal was sentenced to 108 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release.
According to documents in this case, Leal conspired to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine. Leal and his co-defendants had taken trips to California to obtain drugs for distribution. During the final trip in December 2017, Leal and two other individuals flew to California, obtained 11 kilograms of methamphetamine and cocaine which were loaded into a vehicle headed for the Midwest. The drugs were discovered when the vehicle was stopped by police.
This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration with the assistance of the Oklahoma State Police. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Gabrielse.
This case was prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.