Fugitive in Wis. drug case turns up in Fla.

By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Federal authorities said they found a man wanted in Wisconsin on drug charges while booking him into a Florida prison under a different name.

Martin Pineda Pineda is charged in federal court in Wisconsin with conspiracy to deliver and distribute cocaine. Prosecutors said he was part of a Watertown-based cocaine ring that saturated southeastern Wisconsin with the drug.

State Justice Department agents and local police broke up the ring in June 2008 in a series of raids across the region. They captured its alleged leader, Maximo "Coco" Pineda Buenaventura, in Watertown.

Federal prosecutors charged 21 people in the case in Madison, but four were not arrested, including Pineda Pineda. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Connell said Pineda Pineda left Watertown weeks before the raids.

Connell said investigators thought he had gone to Mexico, but he was actually living in Florida under the name Magin Avila Avellaneda. In less than a year he was in trouble there.

According to court documents, Avila Avellaneda helped deliver methamphetamine to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Federal prosecutors in Tampa charged Pineda Pineda under the Avila Avellaneda alias in February with conspiracy to distribute the drug. He pleaded guilty in July and U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday sentenced him to 70 months in prison in September.

As U.S. marshals processed his fingerprints as part of his prison entry process, Connell said, they discovered Avila Avellaneda was really Pineda Pineda.

He was returned to Madison, where he pleaded not guilty on Oct. 22 to conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and two counts of distributing a controlled substance. He's being held in Columbia County jail. His trial is set for March.

Connell said there's no basis to charge Pineda Pineda with fleeing or evading, because it's unclear if he knew about the Wisconsin charges.

Pineda Pineda's attorney in Wisconsin, Erika Bierma, didn't immediately return a message Thursday morning. His attorney in Florida, Timothy James Fitzgerald, declined comment.

Connell said the three other alleged members of the Watertown ring who got away - Angel Ayala Pineda, Celestino Velazquez Rodriguez and Emmanuel Pineda Gonzalez - remain fugitives.

Pineda Buenaventura pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance last December and was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in federal prison.

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