Cocaine, gun sale conviction brings prison sentence

A man who sold a kilogram of cocaine in the parking lot of a North Aurora movie theater was sentenced to 70 months in prison Tuesday.

Cliofas Mijares, of the 1000 block of Sard Avenue in Aurora, was arrested Sept. 26, 2006, in the parking lot of the theater at 320 S. Lincolnway after he gave an undercover officer four pistols and a kilogram of cocaine.

Mijares had been dealing with the officer for two months and had sold him a total of two rifles, a shotgun, two pistols and two small amounts of cocaine in the months leading up to the Sept. 26 sale, according to testimony in the case. The officer was with the DuPage County Sheriff's Police Task Force.

According to the complaint filed in the case, Mijares conducted one of the drug sales while an infant rested in the car seat of his Crown Victoria.

Mijares' attorney, Ronald C. Smith, stressed that Mijares had almost no prior criminal history and said he was a family man.

U.S. District Judge Charles P. Kocoras acknowledged that Mijares had virtually no prior history and said he believed that Mijares probably wasn't a bad person.

But in light of the seriousness of the crime, Kocoras said he had to do hard time.

"Here we have someone who was not born in this country … and winds up dealing guns and drugs -- the two plagues of our society," Kocoras said. "I'm not even going to recount this country's sad history of guns, but it hits pretty close to home."

Mijares said he was sorry for what he had done.

"I would like to apologize to my wife and my whole family and to the court and to the country, the United States," Mijares said.

Mijares will likely face deportation proceedings after he gets out of prison, Kocoras said.