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Jorge Cantua-Herrera was the passenger in a car being driven by a woman he said was his wife on Jan. 4, 2024, when the vehicle was stopped by Eagle County Sheriff Officer Evan Jamarillo of the Gore Range Narcotics Interdiction Team.

The vehicle was carrying 2.7 pounds of fentanyl pills, and Cantua-Herrera and the driver, Emely Hernandez, both of Phoenix, Arizona, were charged with numerous class-1 felonies.

The pair was pulled over while heading eastbound on Interstate 70, and before the interaction had even begun, Jamarillo’s suspicions were raised due to the amount of time it took the vehicle to stop. After noticing the car was following a tractor-trailer too closely and swerving, Jamarillo initiated the traffic stop at mile marker 139, “anticipating the vehicle would exit at MM 140 in the town of Gypsum,” he wrote in his report.

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“Instead, the vehicle continued driving for approximately one-half mile before coming to a stop at approximately MM 140.5,” Jamarillo wrote.

Hernandez told Jaramillo that they were on their way to celebrate her birthday in Denver, en route from Phoenix. In checking Motorola’s Vigilant License Plate Reader Database, however, Jaramillo learned that the vehicle had departed out of California. Jaramillo also checked the records of the El Paso Intelligence Center and learned that in December 2023, Hernandez had entered and exited the United States on three separate occasions at the Calexico border checkpoint in California.

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Jaramillo wrote, adding that “Hernandez told me that she was responsible for the drugs and not her husband.”

Cantua-Herrera also said the pills were not his, but then said “it was both he and his wife’s idea” to transport the pills to Denver, Jamarillo wrote.

Jamarillo said Hernandez’s “cooperation was beyond what I have experienced on similar cases,” and she provided “vital information to continue the investigation beyond Eagle County.”

In August, Hernandez received five years probation after pleading down to a class-3 felony.

Hernandez “cooperated more than Mr. Cantua-Herrera did, and so I suppose that some of those things factored into the negotiations,” Cantua-Herrera’s attorney said on Wednesday, in reflecting on why Hernandez was able to plead down to a class-3 felony, while Cantua-Herrera was only able to plead down to a class-2 felony.

Cantua-Herrera, on Wednesday, was sentenced to five years in the Colorado Department of Corrections after serving 412 days in the Eagle County Detention Center. Five years was the minimum sentence available, and the prosecution called for Cantua-Herrera to serve seven years.

In requesting a harsher sentence for Cantua-Herrera, the prosecution argued that it was not his first time smuggling drugs into Colorado. When Judge Rachel Olguin-Fresquez asked where that information came from, given that Cantua-Herrera, 21, has no prior criminal history, his attorney pointed out that it was information supplied to the authorities by Hernandez.

In issuing Cantua-Herrera the minimum sentence of five years, Olguin-Fresquez noted the discrepancy between Hernandez and Cantua-Herrera’s plea bargain agreements, saying Hernandez was “equally culpable in many ways,” yet was able to plead guilty to a class-3 felony, while Cantua-Herrera was only offered a class-2 felony.

“But it looks like that was the agreement,” Olguin-Fresquez said. “Mr. Cantua, you’ve already served well over a year of that Department of Corrections sentence. … I suspect you have a little more time but probably not a full five years because your history does not reflect any aggravation and you’ve been very active in a positive way.”

Olguin-Fresquez said she was attempting “to treat similarly situated defendants in a similar fashion,” in her decision, and was also impressed with the fact that Cantua-Herrera was able to obtain a general equivalency diploma during his more than 400-day incarceration in Eagle County.

“That is an accomplishment many people try and it is hard,” she said. “I appreciate that you’ve done what you can while incarcerated.”