Ex-Sunset Beach Man Given No-Parole Smuggling Sentence
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Richard Allen Briles was ordered to spend 14 years in prison and made a bit of legal history this week, becoming the first defendant sentenced under a new law forbidding parole for some drug smugglers.
Briles, 43, formerly of Sunset Beach, was sentenced Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real in Los Angeles.
He was arrested in September 600 miles off the West Coast aboard a 49-foot sailboat. The Coast Guard found more than 1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds, of marijuana on the boat, the Serenity.
Charges were brought under the 1986 federal anti-drug abuse act, which mandates 10-year prison terms without parole for possession of 1,000 or more kilograms of drugs.
Marisa Altruda, 26, formerly of Sunset Beach, Briles’ wife and a co-defendant in the case, has been convicted of possession of cocaine and sentenced to eight years in prison. Another co-defendant--Ildebrando Mendoza-Gayo, 22, of Cebu City in the Philippines--has been sentenced to five years for conspiracy.
The marijuana was being shipped from the Philippines to the United States, according to the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. Monica Bachner.
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