Heroin Dealer Sentenced to 12 Years
A September 2015 heroin bust led Santa Barbara Police detectives to the arrest of an Oxnard man, Salvador Cortes Duran, who ended up with a 12-year prison sentence, the District Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday, stemming from a complicated series of incidents occurring over the course of two years.
In the case, SBPD narcotics detectives had arrested two men for heroin sales in 2015 and were told they’d brought the drugs to Santa Barbara after buying them in Oxnard. Police searched three properties in Oxnard associated with Duran and found 8.8 pounds of heroin, $96,000 cash, four handguns, and drug packaging materials. The residence with the bulk of the cash — as well as heroin and guns — was located across from an elementary school on Juanita Avenue.
Duran was released on $500,000 bail in October 2015, but before the case went to trial, he was taken into custody again by officers in May 2017. Five locations associated with him were searched and a more than pound of heroin found and $40,000 in cash. This brought another heroin possession and sales charge in Ventura County, as well as misdemeanor child endangerment.
In June 2017, Duran received a three-year, four-month sentence on the original arrest in 2015. In August 2018, he pled guilty to the May 2017 charges, which included possession of heroin for sale within 1,000 feet of a school, receiving a nine-year sentence on January 8, 2019. Altogether, Duran will serve 12 years, four months in state prison.
