PARSIPPANY — Edward M. Stanel, 25, Parsippany was one of the five men appearing in federal court on Thursday, May 12 to face charges for their roles in a heroin distribution conspiracy that reached from Bronx, New York, to Paterson and suburban communities in New York and New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.
Also appearing in federal court with Stanel was Charlie Rodriguez, 32, Paterson, Reinaldo Rodriguez, 27, Paterson, Victor Alfonso Alvarez Martinez, 26, Bronx, New York, and Joseph Trimarco, 28, Stony Point, New York, are charged by criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to distribute a kilogram or more of heroin. Martinez and Trimarco were arrested Wednesday night, May 11. The rest were arrested on Thursday morning, May 12. All five defendants appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Hammer in Newark federal court.
According to the complaint from June 2015 through May 2016, the defendants participated in a drug trafficking organization that amassed wholesale quantities of heroin at multiple locations in and around Bronx and used couriers to deliver large quantities of that heroin to mid-level drug dealers operating in and around Paterson. The heroin was either sold in the Paterson area or re-distributed to street-level drug dealers in suburban areas, including but not limited to, Morris County and Rockland County, New York.
In addition to the defendants who appeared in court today, Juan Pablo Goris-Castellano, 25, Bronx, Edwin Lopez, 30, Elmwood Park, and Carolina Almonte, 27, Bronx, were charged on April 20, 2016 in a separate but related federal criminal complaint with conspiring to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin.
Goris-Castellano, who was based out of Bronx, packaged and then distributed large quantities of heroin to Lopez, who operated out of Paterson.
Almonte and Martinez brought the heroin to Lopez and returned to Goris-Castellano with Lopez’s payment. Lopez then sold portions of that heroin to Charlie Rodriguez, who worked closely with Reinaldo Rodriguez to re-sell portions of that heroin to street-level dealers in Paterson and to street-level dealers in suburban areas including Stanel who operated in Morris County and Trimarco who operated in Rockland County.
The drug distribution conspiracy charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of ten years in prison, a maximum potential penalty of life in prison, and a maximum $10 million fine.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Carl J. Kotowski in Newark, with the investigation leading to today’s charges.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara F. Merin of the OCDETF/Narcotics Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark.
This case was conducted under the auspices of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) and the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force, a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.
Editors Note: A criminal complaint is merely an accusation. Despite this accusation, the defendant is presumed innocent until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
