Meth-Smuggling Couple Found Guilty In Jefferson County

GOLDEN, CO – Two flat tires and a car backing up into oncoming traffic came to the attention of Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy on a cold January day. The officer's decision to stop to help the Kansas couple in the car uncovered a smuggling operation transporting more than 6,400 grams of methamphetamine, a Jefferson County jury heard this week in JeffCo District Court.

Jose Chavez-Tellez, 48, was found guilty of possession with intent to distribute nearly 15 pounds of meth with a street value of $350,000, the prosecutors said. The jury took less than 40 minutes to render a verdict, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office said Thursday.

Chavez-Tellez and his wife Rhonda, 52, had driven to Los Angeles to pick up the illegal narcotics, wrapped in 15 quart-sized Ziploc baggies, to bring back the state of Kansas where they lived. On January 2, the travelers stopped at a Wheat Ridge truck stop at Ward Road and 44th Avenue, prosecutors said. The couple then drove away from the truck stop.

That's when driver Jose Chavez-Tellez's car "struck a curb, popping both tires on the passenger side of the vehicle," the DA's office said. A JeffCo sheriff’s deputy noticed Chavez-Tellez "backing eastbound in the westbound lanes of 52nd avenue with two flat tires," prosecutors said. The officer stopped to help. While checking on the car, the deputy noted a shopping bag in the car's back cargo area. The bag turned out to contain 14.65 pounds, or 6,644 grams, of meth.

The two were taken into custody and Jose has since been held in the Jefferson County Jail on $250,000 bond.

Jose Chavez-Tellez will be sentenced on October 29 and faces a mandatory minimum of 8 to 32 years in prison, the District Attorney's Office said.

Rhonda Chavez-Tellez pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute narcotics was sentenced Thursday to six years in prison.

Image via Jefferson County District Attorney's Office

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