Judge sentences San Mateo man who allegedly set up drug deal while on pretrial release for 35-pound meth bust

SAN FRANCISCO — A San Mateo man who was rearrested on drug charges while on pretrial release for transporting 37 pounds of drugs has been sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison.

Juan Carlos Hernandez-Ruiz was sentenced in late July by U.S. District Judge William Orrick, court records show. Hernandez-Ruiz pleaded guilty to a methamphetamine distribution charge last December.

Hernandez-Ruiz was arrested in 2019 after he was caught transporting 35 pounds of methamphetamine and two pounds of heroin in his car, en route to Northern California from Los Angeles. He was granted pretrial release and sent home with an ankle monitor, but according to federal authorities, continued to set up drug deals.

In May 2020, Hernandez-Ruiz allegedly sent his drug dealer to a pre-arranged methamphetamine deal in East Palo Alto, but apparently didn’t realize the people he arranged to sell drugs to were confidential informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was subsequently arrested and hit with federal charges 10 days later.

Prosecutors asked for a 10-year prison term, writing in court papers that Hernandez-Ruiz’s initial arrest should have been a wake-up call.

Hernandez-Ruiz’s attorney, Erick Guzman, wrote in court records that a five-year prison term would adequately punish him, but that a lengthy sentence would harm his family as well.

“By the time of Mr. Hernandez-Ruiz’s release, he will have missed many of the milestones in his child’s life. And, if Mr. Hernandez-Ruiz is released from custody in his early thirties, with a felony record, it will be exceedingly difficult to rebuild a life for him and his family,” Guzman wrote in a sentencing memo.