United States Attorney Dennis R. Holmes announced that two Rapid City, South Dakota, people have been indicted by a federal grand jury for Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Substance and Possession of a Firearm by a Prohibited Person.
Amber Ashlin, age 33, and Eugene Perez, age 42, were indicted on January 20, 2022. They appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daneta Wollmann on January 26, 2022, and pled not guilty to the Indictment.
The penalty upon conviction is a mandatory minimum of ten years up to life in federal prison and/or a $10,000,000 fine, three years of supervised release, and $100 to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Restitution may also be ordered.
The charge stems from Ashlin and Perez conspiring with each other and others to distribute methamphetamine in Deadwood and Rapid City between January 2018 and December 2021. Both are previously convicted felons who are prohibited from possessing firearms and were illegally in possession of semi-automatic pistols in September 2021. The charges are merely an accusation and Ashlin and Perez are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), 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.
The investigation is being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Unified Narcotics Enforcement Team (UNET), which is comprised of law enforcement from the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, Rapid City Police Department, South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, and the South Dakota National Guard. Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Patterson is prosecuting the case.
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Ashlin and Perez were detained pending trial. A trial date has not been set.
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