Drug dealer receives 5-year sentence

A Washington man arrested during an Amtrak Empire Builder stop in Havre who pleaded guilty in a plea agreement to charges including possession of drugs with intent to distribute was sentenced in state District Court in Havre to five years with the state Department of Corrections.

District Judge Dan Boucher sentenced Alejandro Romero, born in 1988, to five years for criminal possession with intent to distribute and five years for use or possession of property subject to criminal forfeiture. Romero also received six months each, all suspended, for criminal possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal possession of dangerous drugs. All the sentences are to run at the same time.

Boucher recommended DOC place Romero in the Nexus chemical dependency treatment center.

Boucher said during sentencing that although Romero’s offenses are nonviolent, he has a propensity to engage in violence related to drugs, minutes of the hearing say.

Deputy Hill County Attorney Carolyn Gray said in an email Romero told the court Monday during sentencing that he’d spent half his life in jail and it has only taught him to be a better criminal, and he wanted to be rehabilitated from drugs.

Law enforcement intelligence had tied Romero to gang activity before he was apprehended in January at the Amtrak depot in Havre. Romero had at least 10 felony convictions by then.

When they arrested Romero officers found 5.5 ounces of methamphetamine, 16 grams of marijuana, a John Wayne pistol, a Walther 9mm pistol, a loaded Taurus .380 pistol, a Hi-Point 9mm pistol, two digital scales, “jeweler-type” baggies, a 200-gram scale weight, 19 glass meth pipes, two marijuana pipes and $9,884 in cash that was believed to have come from drug distribution in eastern Montana.