A federal judge sentenced a former stockbroker from Totowa to 37 months in prison Friday for helping distribute 700 kilograms of marijuana as part of a drug-importation and distribution ring in the United States, Canada and Europe.
The sentencing followed the June guilty plea Kushtrim Blaku, 30, who worked for several securities firms in New York and California, to a charge of conspiring to distribute marijuana from 2001 to 2011.
Authorities estimate the trafficking operation, for which at least 49 people have pleaded guilty, had revenue of about $15 million a year bringing cocaine, marijuana, MDMA (also known as molly and whose ingredients are found in the drug ecstasy) and the pain killer oxycodone to the U.S. through a supply chain that included Canada, Mexico, South America and the Netherlands.
In U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Blaku - who had a $500-a-month marijuana addiction while he was helping the drug operation, according to court testimony - sought to portray himself as reformed, having quit drugs and was working hard to help his brothers create an online start-up company, Adrunner Media, that provides users with business leads.
"I know my behavior at the time was inexcusable," he told federal Judge Dora Lizette Irizarry. "It was stupid ... It's hard for me to look back and know the person that I was. I am a completely different person today."
However, Steven L. Tiscione, chief narcotics prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn, argued that the crime was too serious to warrant a non-prison sentence.
Irizzary agreed, saying that 700 kilograms of marijuana, about 1,500 pounds, is a large amount of drugs that likely did extreme damage to the people who used it, their families and other parts of society.
"It's rather disingenuous to say, 'Gee, I don't know how I managed to get involved in this,' '' said Irizarry, who also sentenced Blaku to three years supervision on his release. "You were 24 years old. You were not 16, or 17. You knew what you were doing, and you made a conscious choice."
Source:- northjersey.com
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