Former Riverside County deputy pleads guilty to transporting over 100 pounds of fentanyl
A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty to felony charges after he was caught transporting more than 100 pounds of fentanyl in late-2023.
Jorge Alberto Oceguera Rocha, a 26-year-old Banning resident, admitted last week to carrying the controlled substances and to possession of controlled substances for sale during a hearing in Riverside.
He made the plea directly to Superior Court Judge David Gunn, without input or objection from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.
During the hearing, Gunn dismissed sentence-enhancing allegations of perpetrating a drug-related offense while armed. He also imposed a four-year term of incarceration, which can be served in county jail because Rocha's crimes are categorized as "non-violent."
Rocha was released on Thursday from the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta after the court factored in state credits, intended to reduce overcrowding, and adding the time that he had already spent behind bars while awaiting disposition. He will now be on mandatory supervision for the next 16 months.
He was arrested in the early morning on Sept. 17, 2023, when he was pulled over near the I-10 Freeway and County Line Road in Calimesa, prosecutors said. He was being surveilled as part of an investigation into more than a dozen people, conducted a part of Operation Hotline Bling, which is a law enforcement operation to crackdown on the Sinaloa drug trafficking network based in Mexico.
"After a K9 alerted to the presence of narcotics within the vehicle, a search was conducted," said RSO Captain Rob Roggeveen at the time of the arrest. "Located in the vehicle was (104) pounds of packaged fentanyl pills — M30s. Also located in the vehicle was a loaded handgun."
Rocha, who had been working at the department's Banning station since he was hired in 2019, was arrested without incident and resigned from his position with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department immediately following his arrest.
It's not clear exactly how long Rocha was being monitored by investigators.
On Thursday, the day after news of Rocha's sentencing was announced, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco took to social media to further discuss the matter.
He says that the Riverside County District Attorney objected to Rocha's plea, contradictory to some media reports.
"I am telling you that is a flat out lie," Bianco said. "The Riverside County Sheriff's Office, who investigated this crime and our Riverside County DA's Office, who prosecuted this crime, adamantly objected to this sentence."
His sentiment was matched in a statement from a district attorney spokesperson.
"We did object, on the record in open court, to the defendant making a plea to the court ... based on the defendant taking advantage of a position of public trust," the statement read in part.
