Koloa residents sentenced for meth

LIHUE — Two Koloa residents have been sentenced to about five years in prison for possession of methamphetamine.

Federal prosecutors charged Nancy Igaya and Leonard Aguinaldo last September with conspiracy to possess and distribute methamphetamine after an officer with the Kauai Police Department’s narcotics unit seized two pounds of the drug in packages addressed to their home.

Igaya reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in April and was sentenced at an Aug. 12 hearing in U.S. District Court in Honolulu to four years, nine months in prison. Aguinaldo was sentenced the same day. He did not sign a plea agreement and got five and a half years.

After police intercepted the packages — each contained just over one pound of crystal meth — they replaced the drugs with vacuum-sealed decoy bags, added beeper devices to notify officers when the boxes were opened and dusted the inside with a florescent powder to identify anyone who might later handle the contents, according to the affidavit of a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The affidavit says an undercover KPD officer, posing as a UPS employee, then delivered the parcels to a home, where Aguinaldo signed for them, and about a half hour later, the beepers went off, notifying police that one of the boxes had been opened.

According to the affidavit, KPD officers “secured the target residence” and found several people inside, including Aguinaldo and Igaya, who had the florescent powder on her hands and told police she opened the box and placed it in a kitchen cabinet. The other parcel was found unopened in a bedroom.

“Igaya admitted that she had ordered the two pounds of methamphetamine from a source in California to whom she owed $30,000,” the DEA agent wrote in the affidavit. “Aguinaldo also admitted knowledge of the methamphetamine in the parcels and that he would work with Igaya to sell the drugs.”

Igaya and Aguinaldo were both arrested and sent to a federal detention center in Honolulu. Court documents show police also seized $3,262 in cash from the home during the raid. Federal prosecutors later notified Igaya and Aguinaldo the money would be forfeited to the U.S. government upon their convictions.

According to charging documents in the case, a national criminal history check on Igaya revealed multiple prior offenses — two felony convictions for drug possession, one for burglary and a misdemeanor for child abuse — and Aguinaldo had been convicted of a felony theft charge and misdemeanors for family abuse and assault in Hawaii.

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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.