SAN FRANCISCO — A woman who was arrested and charged with distributing fentanyl in the Bay Area, along with other members of her family, has been sentenced to three years in federal prison, court records show.
Leydis Yaneth Cruz, 43, of Oakland, was sentenced last month to three years and two months in prison, along with a four-year supervised release term. Prosecutors say she sold fentanyl to an undercover federal agent and that a co-defendant followed up the deal by selling 1,000 fentanyl pills to the agent. When Cruz was arrested, she was in possession of more than three pounds of fentanyl, and several ounces of cocaine and methamphetamine, according to court records.
The prosecution was made as part of a federal operation known as the Federal Initiative in the Tenderloin, or FIT. It is one that came in response to continually spiking fentanyl overdose deaths — the drug killed more than twice as many people in the United States as firearms last year. The program has been criticized by San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin as a means of circumventing sanctuary city laws, since many of those prosecuted end up being deported.
In Cruz’s case, she will be deported to Honduras after she’s freed from prison. She is currently being housed at FCI Dublin, a federal prison for women that has made national headlines in recent weeks for an ongoing sex abuse scandal that resulted in prosecution of several guards and the prison’s former warden.
Cruz’s attorney, George Boisseau, wrote in court records that Cruz was a “not good” drug dealer who accepts she made a mistake. He said Cruz has now been separated from her daughter and may never see her again.
“She cannot even fully explain to her youngest daughter … what she did to cause their separation. In her mind, there is just not enough money in the world to make up for the separation pain she feels now,” Boisseau wrote. He later added, “Her heart burdened with such thoughts, Cruz looks to the future with trepidation. Will she be permanently separated from her daughter and how will she cope with her return to Honduras?”
Boisseau wrote that Cruz fled Honduras to the United States “to escape physical abuse, poverty and a hopelessness of not being able to support her family.”
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors described Cruz as a prolific drug dealer who bought wholesale quantities of fentanyl and other drugs and repackaged them for distribution. They wrote she already re-entered the United States after one deportation and had assisted other family members with evading police.
Cuz’s adult son, 24-year-old Emilson “Playboy” Cruz-Mayorquin, of Oakland, was sentenced last year to four years in federal prison. Prosecutors described him as the most culpable person in the drug ring and said at the time of his arrest he was constructing an extravagant mansion for himself in Honduras, with marbled bathroom walls and a porch held up by Roman-style pillars.