DALLAS — An MS-13 gang member was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in federal prison for a drug crime, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Angie Marlyn Valencia, 28, was indicted in November 2021 and pleaded guilty in April 2022 to "conspiracy to possess" with intent to distribute heroin. She was sentenced Wednesday to 65 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, who also ordered her to forfeit two firearms.
At her sentencing hearing, Judge Starr ruled that the defendant belonged to MS-13, a notoriously violent transnational street gang with the creed, “kill, rob, rape, control.”
Also in April 2022, the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Texas identified seven MS-13 gang members who were accused of committing violent crimes during the deadly Jan. 31 attack in a Beaumont penitentiary that caused a nationwide prison lockdown.
In plea papers, Valencia admitted she and a co-conspirator, boyfriend Williams Jose Fuentes-Argueta, dealt heroin out of an apartment on Royal Lane in Dallas.
On Sept. 16, 2021, while Valencia acted as a lookout, Fuentes-Argueta sold more than 70 grams of heroin to an undercover Texas DPS officer for $2,700 cash. About two weeks later, the pair teamed up again to sell another 76 grams of heroin to two undercover officers.
Fuentes-Argueta pleaded guilty in June 2022 to the same charge as Valencia. He is slated to be sentenced on Oct. 26.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, the Carrolton Police Department, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives’ Dallas Field Division conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Leal is prosecuting the case.
