Marion man pleads guilty to reduced charge for dealing heroin

MARION — A 34-year-old man pleaded guilty to dealing heroin earlier this month.

Jorge L. Fuentes, of Marion, pleaded guilty on Oct. 3 to a reduced charge of trafficking in heroin, a third-degree felony, and one count of having weapons while under disability, a third-degree felony, in Marion County Common Pleas Court.

He could be sentenced to up to six years in prison.

Fuentes initially had been charged with second-degree felony trafficking after law enforcement found nearly 40 grams of heroin at his residence in the 100 block of Lawrence Avenue during a search warrant, according to court records.

For a trafficking offense involving heroin to be a third-degree felony, the amount must be between 5 and 10 grams.

At Fuentes' plea hearing, prosecutors agreed that the amount of heroin involved was less than 10 grams, hence the lesser charge.

Prosecutors offered to reduce the charge to a third-degree felony earlier this month.

Law enforcement had been watching Fuentes over a six-month period, Marion County Assistant Prosecutor William Owen said at the plea hearing.

After a confidential informant bought about 0.5 grams of heroin from a man believed to be Fuentes in January, law enforcement placed a GPS tracking device on Fuentes' black van, according to an affidavit filed in court and signed by Detective Stacy McCoy, of the Marion County Sheriff's Office.

Law enforcement orchestrated two more drug buys several months later in July, according to the affidavit.

The drug buys were all recorded and reviewed by law enforcement, the affidavit says. For at least one of the buys, law enforcement followed Fuentes and the confidential informant to or from the drug deals, which happened outside a laundromat, outside a restaurant and in an alley, according to the affidavit.

After the third drug buy, detectives applied for the search warrant, which they carried out on July 18, court records show.

In addition to the nearly 40 grams of suspected heroin, law enforcement found $3,058, a digital scale and a loaded Smith and Wesson .40-caliber handgun that Fuentes was prohibited from having by a prior drug trafficking conviction out of Marion County in 2015, according to court records. They also found a phone that was used to set up the drug buys with the confidential informants, Owen said.

Fuentes is being held in the Multi-County Correctional Center in Marion. His sentencing hearing does not appear to have been scheduled yet.

svolpenhei@gannett.com

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