By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A Centralia man described as a career drug trafficker was sentenced in federal court today to 15 years in prison.
Juvenal Sanchez-Islas, 33, was arrested in early 2010 with another man at a South King County apartment and the two were in possession of four kilos of heroin, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.
Significant amounts of cocaine and methamphetamine were found inside the apartment, and searches there and at his Centralia home turned up a firearm and ammunition bearing his finger prints, according to U.S. Attorneys Office spokesperson Emily Langlie.
Sanchez-Islas is a Mexican national who pleaded guilty during his trial in November, according to Langlie.
He had previously been convicted and deported for drug trafficking, according to a news release.
At sentencing this morning in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Judge Robert S. Lasnik said, “He is a big time drug dealer who unleashed a lot of terribly dangerous drugs on the community over a long period of time,” the news release stated.