A San Diego federal jury has convicted 23-year-old Ricardo Orizaba-Zendejas on charges that federal prosecutors say tie a border-region drug ring to the 2022 murders of a Yakima, Washington couple and their unborn child.
Yesterday, jurors found Orizaba guilty of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine, as well as possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. They needed roughly six hours of deliberation before returning the verdicts, according to federal prosecutors, who say the case linked him to a Yakima-based trafficking cell investigators connected to the killings.
According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California, agents arrested Orizaba on Feb. 8, 2023, and seized 11 bags of fentanyl pills, three bags of heroin, an AR-15 rifle with a scope, body armor, a drum magazine and other ammunition, a scale, an electronic money counter and large amounts of cash from his bedroom. Prosecutors said the investigation picked up steam after a traffic stop earlier in the probe turned up roughly 150,000 fentanyl pills in a vehicle registered to one of the eventual murder victims. The U.S. Attorney’s Office provides a summary of the evidence presented at trial…