WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — A convicted drug trafficker will spend the next three decades in prison following a conviction handed up in Lexington County.
According to the 11th Circuit Solicitor's Office, 29-year-old Israel Mendoza Cervantes was sentenced in general sessions court earlier in the week after being convicted of all charges brought against him.
The charges included trafficking heroin - 28 grams or more, possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
Cervantes received a 25-year sentence for the trafficking conviction, a concurrent 15-year sentence for the possession with intent to distribute conviction, and a consecutive five-year sentence for the weapon charge which came to 30 years in all.
The conviction stems from an investigation that began in September 2018 when Richland County Sheriff's Department narcotics agents shared information with the neighboring Lexington County Sheriff's Department. Cervantes was one of two suspects in the case who had apparently moved into Lexington County and, according to Richland County investigators, was involved in the selling of heroin.
According to prosecutors, the Lexington County Sheriff's Department opened its own investigation into Cervantes and the other suspect and began watching them closely at a home on Leica Lane in near West Columbia.
Prosecutors said this was later found to be the center of their drug operation which later also became the focus of a search warrant.
In October 2018, deputies and agents from both Richland and Lexington counties joined SWAT team members where Cervantes was found laying face down in a shed with his hands out, the solicitor's office said. However, investigators said four firearms as well as packaging materials, scales, money, cocaine, heroin, and cutting agents were all found within feet of him.
In all, about a quarter pound of heroin was recovered from the location.
During the sentencing hearing, Assistant Solicitor Kelly Oppenheimer presented data regarding 53 overdose deaths linked to heroin in Lexington County since 2018 calling the dealing of such drugs "unconscionable."
The other defendant in the case, Angel M. Ibarra, had already been convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in May for his role in the operation.
