One of two men who admitted being recruited by a fellow federal prisoner in 2010 to distribute cocaine from a Mexican cartel into Arkansas was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison -- two to seven years less than recommended by federal sentencing guidelines for a "career offender."
Emmanuel "Chi Chi" Ilo, 37, faced 22 to 27 years in prison when his extensive criminal history and the amount of cocaine he was responsible for receiving and distributing -- 15 to 50 kilograms, or 33 to 100 pounds -- was taken into account. But at the end of a two-hour sentencing hearing stemming from his June guilty plea to a conspiracy charge, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright gave him a break, saying she believes he is sincere in saying he has grown tired of drug dealing and now just wants an honest job and to take care of his five children.
At the same time, Wright told him, "You have done many bad things, including your participation in this very bad scheme. Drugs do a whole lot of damage in our society and damage many lives."
She cautioned him that when he is released in less than 20 years -- with credit for time served in jail since being indicted in 2013 -- his participation in the "normal world" of work will mean, "You are not going to be making the big bucks." She noted that he had only one "normal" job in his adult life between various stints in prison and jail.
The judge heard testimony from three people, including an ex-wife, Ilo's mother and a former girlfriend's aunt. All of them described him as considerably smarter than the average drug dealer, but so devoted to providing for his nuclear family and the children he eventually fathered with five different women that he couldn't turn down opportunities to make a lot of money quickly through the sale of drugs.
Nibla Mooby, an ex-wife with a master's degree, with whom Ilo has a 16-year-old son who has excelled in school, testified that Ilo has always had "an over-inflated sense of responsibility, no ability to say no," which she blamed for causing "a lot of issues for him."
Defense attorney Willard Proctor Jr. said, "He is one of my smartest clients, but his intellect wasn't channeled in the appropriate direction. ... He's living out the consequences of his bad choices."
Defense attorney Bill Luppen agreed, saying he has known Ilo for 20 years and knows he got started selling drugs while in college as a means to make money.
"He's a good person in a bad business," Luppen said. Like the other witnesses, Luppen told the judge he thinks Ilo is finally "through with this."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon offered a different perspective.
"The reality is," he told Wright, "he's a drug dealer. And not just a little drug dealer on a street corner. He tapped into a Mexican cartel, he crossed the border into Mexico to meet with La Tia [Idalia Ramos Rangel, alleged to be a cartel leader] face to face. Then he came back to Arkansas and sold kilo after kilo after kilo that she shipped here to Little Rock."
Rangel of Matamoros, Mexico, is among 18 people who were indicted in the Eastern District of Arkansas in 2013 on accusations of distributing hundreds of pounds of cocaine into central Arkansas from mid-2008 through mid-2013. She has been wanted by the FBI since the 1980s and remains a fugitive.
One of her sons, Mohammed "Mo" Martinez, 34, pleaded guilty in July 2014 to a conspiracy charge, admitting he recruited fellow inmates Ilo and Mervin "Slim" Johnson, while all were housed in the federal prison in Forrest City, to help his mother distribute cocaine in Arkansas. Martinez was sentenced to 10 years on top of a previous 23-year sentence from a 2006 federal drug conviction in Texas.
Johnson, who prosecutors said played a minor role compared to Ilo, was sentenced in July to 10 years in prison after he also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.
Metro on 11/04/2016