A 29-year-old Hailey man will spend a second stint in prison following sentencing in Blaine County 5th District Court on Monday for trafficking in methamphetamine.
Carlos Moya-Diaz was given a three-year mandatory prison sentence, as required by Idaho law for the offense. He was further fined $10,000, which is also required by state law. Sentence was pronounced by Judge Robert J. Elgee, who further imposed a five-year indeterminate prison sentence.
Moya-Diaz was one of four defendants arrested on illegal drug sales charges in March following investigations by the Blaine County Narcotics Enforcement Team and an indictment by a Blaine County grand jury. Moya-Diaz pleaded guilty in August to a single methamphetamine trafficking count.
Moya-Diaz, who is sometimes known as Carlos Moya, was also sentenced to prison in 2007 for delivery of a controlled substance. In that case he was given a three-year fixed and a three-year indeterminate sentence.
“Mr. Moya is a drug dealer and he has been, and he keeps going, to the pen and coming out and doing it again,” said Blaine County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matt Fredback and Monday’s sentencing hearing.
For his latest conviction, Fredback said Moya-Diaz sold 63 grams of methamphetamine for $1,600 to a police confidential informant in January.
Idaho law requires a three-year fixed prison sentence for conviction of a methamphetamine sale of between 28 grams and 200 grams. For sales of larger amounts of the drug, even higher mandatory prison sentences are required by law.
“There really isn’t a lot to be said here because I don’t have a choice here,” Elgee said in pronouncing sentence.
Moya-Diaz, who had been free on $15,000 bond, was taken into custody at the conclusion of the hearing.