'Finna Go To The Moon': Drug Dealing Duo Sentenced To Federal Prison

CHICAGO — Two north suburban men were recently sentenced to lengthy federal criminal sentences following their convictions on drug conspiracy charges.

Sheldon Morales, 42, of Morton Grove, and Eduardo Santana, 47, of Skokie, were convicted by a jury two years ago, with Morales also convicted of a separate charge of attempted drug possession.

Morales was sentenced to 19 years and seven months, while Santana received a sentence of 16 years and eight months.

Both were involved in trafficking methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cocaine from Mexico to Evanston and Morton Grove in 2019, authorities said.

As Evanston Patch previously reported, Morales faced a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence, while Santana had a 10-year mandatory minimum.

Citing wiretapped conversations, federal prosecutors said the two men conspired with inmates in a Texas prison who acted as brokers for a narcotics supplier in Mexico known as "Omar."

While Santana's attorneys argued that he should have been treated as a minor participant in the conspiracy, prosecutors said he was a trusted partner from the start.

"We finna go to the moon, bro," Morales told Santana, according to a government exhibit. "We're the head of Chicago, bro, from their cartel."

Morales, an Evanston native with roots in Belize, faced extensive challenges as one of 10 children with an abusive and religiously conservative father who would allow him only one activity: attending church, according to a memo from his attorney.

"He remembers older kids paying him $5-10 to hide drugs in the family's yard for them," it said. "Drug sales occurred nearly around the clock in the alley behind the family's home, bringing violence associated with drug sales, like shootings, fights and other problems."

According to the memo from his attorney and letters to the judge on his behalf from his family, Morales had completed an earlier drug related sentence and had successfully acquired a job on the east coast upon his release.

But after his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Morales returned to the Chicago area and again became involved in the illicit drug trade. He was sentenced by Judge Mary Rowland at a hearing April 16.

Morales' younger brother, Darius, is currently serving a sentence of nearly eight years in federal prison following a May 2019 incident in Evanston involving a high-speed chase, crash and lockdowns of local school.

A fourth man was convicted in 2021 as part of the same investigation, according to prosecutors. Demetrius Shavers, 42, of Chicago, got a sentence of more than six and a half years in federal prison.

Santana, who was sentenced Tuesday, grew up in the Virgin Islands and moved to the U.S. when he was 17. After he and his sister were kicked out of his father's home, he joined the Gangster Disciples and began accumulating criminal charges.

One of those charges was voluntarily dismissed after prosecutors in the Chicago area learned that the case agent, then-Evanston police officer Fernando Gomez, was the subject of a covert investigation by prosecutors in New York.

Gomez sold guns to a cocaine dealer and assisted a Puerto Rican drug trafficking organization called Organizacion de Narcotraficantes Unidos, known as La ONU, or, in English, United Drug Traffickers while also working for the Evanston Police Department, authorities said. He pleaded guilty in 2020 in exchange for a four-year prison sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Mulaney said Santana got an "extremely rare lucky break" when prosecutors dropped earlier drug and gun charges due to Gomez's involvement.

"As a result, Santana received an enormous windfall that other defendants could only dream of," Mulaney said in a sentencing memo.

"Less than a year later, Santana made the decision to continue his career in the drug trafficking business," he said. "He knew Morales all his adult life and was well-aware of the scope of Morales’s drug trafficking organization. In his intercepted calls, the two discussed it in explicit detail—a brick compressor of cocaine, a fifteen-pound shipment of methamphetamine, and working with a Mexican cartel."

Read more: 2 Convicted Of Drug Conspiracy Face Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Feds