Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

NEW BERN – The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced that yesterday in federal court, United States District Judge Louise W. Flanagan sentenced CHRISTIAN IVAN CARDENAS, 21, of Greenville, North Carolina, to 128 months of imprisonment followed by 5 years of supervised release.

 

CARDENAS was charged in a two-count Criminal Information on January 19, 2017 and pleaded guilty on March 15, 2017 to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute quantities of marijuana and alprazolam (Xanax) and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime.

 

In August of 2015, the Greenville Regional Drug Trask Force, which is comprised of law enforcement officers from the Greenville Police Department, the Winterville Police Department, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the East Carolina University Police Department, began investigating CARDENAS as a narcotics distributor in Pitt County. After a controlled purchase from CARDENAS, a search warrant was issued on CARDENAS’s residence. At the time of the execution of the search warrant, CARDENAS fired multiple shots through the front door towards law enforcement officers, with one round striking East Carolina University Officer Travis Davis’s body armor. Fortunately, Officer Davis was not injured.

 

When law enforcement made their way into the home, several loaded firearms, currency, pills, and marijuana were found. Specifically, the officers recovered a loaded .45 caliber handgun, a loaded semi-automatic assault rifle, and a 12-gauge shotgun, as well as thousands of dollars, several hundred grams of marijuana, and more than two hundred Adderall pills.

 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) also assisted in the case. Assistant United States Attorney Scott A. Lemmon handled the prosecution of this case for the government.