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Cocaine dealer sentenced
BY BEN CRITES, The Island Packet
Published Friday, January 19, 2007

An illegal immigrant was sentenced to 25 years in state prison on Wednesday for dealing cocaine from a hotel room in greater Bluffton in 2005.

A jury deliberated for about an hour before finding Osiel Narciso Gomez, 28, guilty. The Beaufort-Jasper Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Force had been watching Gomez that summer at the Surburban Lodge, 1376 Fording Island Road, after receiving tips about the Hispanic man, said Deputy Solicitor Angela McCall-Tanner.

On Aug. 3, 2005, the task force saw Gomez carry a package wrapped in a white T-shirt from the hotel and place it in the back of a Ford Explorer. Task force members notified a deputy who was waiting in a cruiser in the median of the parkway.

The deputy stopped the Explorer because its tags had expired and the drug task force had learned that Gomez did not have a driver's license, McCall-Tanner said.

The Beaufort County sheriff's dog team arrived, and four bags of cocaine were found wrapped in the T-shirt in a laundry basket in the cargo area. Another bag was by the center console.

In all, about 112 grams of cocaine were found. Judge Howard King gave Gomez 25 years, the mandatory sentence for possessing more than 100 grams of cocaine.

The task force had confirmed Gomez was an illegal immigrant through Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said. Gomez will serve his sentence and then be deported, according to Solicitor Duffie Stone.

Kimberly Smith prosecuted the case for the 14th Judicial Circuit Solicitor's Office, while attorney Don Colongeli handled the defense. The case was tried at the Beaufort County Courthouse.


Contact Ben Crites at 706-8138 or bcrites@islandpacket.com.