He helped fly nearly 200 pounds of cocaine into Lexington. He asks for shorter prison term

A California man was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy that brought nearly 200 pounds of cocaine and 40 pounds of methamphetamine to Lexington's Blue Grass Airport last year.

Isaac Basilio-Rosas, 33, pleaded guilty in January. He is one of three defendants who have pleaded guilty to flying 80 bricks of cocaine to Lexington aboard a twin-engine jet last year. Each brick weighed 2.2 pounds, for a total of 176 pounds.

In open court and in a letter to U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell, Basilio-Rosas accepted responsibility for his conduct.

"What I did deserves punishment," he said through an interpreter. "I feel very, very regretful. I will never do again what I did."

In his letter to Caldwell, Basilio-Rosas wrote: "Your honor, I understand that because of my actions I am in this horrible situation. I also understand that I cannot go back in time to fix this issue, but I can work on fixing my life path to avoid a similar situation in the near future.

"I wanted to ask you for an opportunity to be able to get back with my two beautiful kids and my wife. They are suffering because of me and they don't deserve that," Basilio-Rosas wrote.

Defense attorney Elizabeth Snow said Basilio-Rosas exhibited "complete acceptance of his own responsibility." Snow asked the judge for a sentence of 100 months, or a little more than eight years.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dmitry Slavin said the nature of the offense was "extremely large." Had the cocaine and meth made it onto the streets "that would have done a lot of damage to this community," Slavin said.

Slavin asked for a sentence of 114 months, or a little more than nine years.

Caldwell said Basilio-Rosas "appears to be genuinely remorseful of his conduct, while so many who come before this court are sorry they were caught."

Nevertheless, Caldwell said the amount of drugs seized was one of the largest that she has seen in her nearly 17 years as a federal judge.

The jet carrying the drugs flew into Lexington from Van Nuys, Calif. Federal agents were tipped off to the plane's arrival and the drugs it carried.

A suitcase on the plane was loaded into a car that was later stopped by Kentucky State Police after it ran a stop sign. Drug-sniffing dogs detected drugs in the car, and more drugs were later found on the plane. The 80 bricks of cocaine were in three separate pieces of luggage found on the aircraft, according to a plea agreement.

Two other defendants await sentencing.

Robert Walter Carlson, who pleaded guilty in February, is scheduled to be sentenced June 26. Cedric Allen Oronce Fajardo, who pleaded guilty in July, is scheduled to be sentenced June 28.

While the Lexington bust was large, it is dwarfed by an April 19 seizure in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted 1,147 pounds of cocaine at the UPS hub in Louisville. And in 2004, Kentucky State Police found about 800 pounds of cocaine after a traffic stop on Interstate 71.

This story was originally published May 2, 2018 at 3:53 PM with the headline "He helped fly nearly 200 pounds of cocaine into Lexington. He asks for shorter prison term."