3rd defendant still fighting $1M North Aurora pot bust
Two men from a $1 million marijuana bust last year on Interstate 88 near North Aurora are going to prison, but a third is still fighting.
Pablo Galeana-Rueda, 35, of Aberdeen, Wash., wants to have statements and evidence from his Jan. 14, 2011, arrest disallowed in court.
Kane County Judge Marmarie Kostelny will hear arguments March 1 that Rueda’s 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure were violated.
“The officer must be able to articulate facts leading to something more than an inchoate and unparticularized hunch,” wrote Assistant Public Defender Judy Kullenberg in court documents.
The move to suppress evidence is likely Rueda’s last move before the case heads to trial. He faces a six- to 30-year prison term if convicted of cannabis trafficking and delivery of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis.
He’s been held at the Kane County jail since his arrest after failing to pay a toll on the interstate.
A deputy pulled over Rueda after his passenger put a paper bill into a 60-cent tollbooth at Route 31 and I-88 near North Aurora.
The deputy became suspicious after determining that the driver, Rueda, and his passenger, Jose Hernandez-Calderon, 41, of Santa Rosa, Calif., didn’t know each other’s last names, were driving in a car with an Oregon registration and had soft, non-callused hands despite saying they were headed to Elgin and Chicago to find construction work.
Authorities found 56 pounds of high-grade marijuana with an estimated value of more than $1 million.
Calderon pleaded guilty last year to cannabis trafficking, was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined nearly $24,000.
A third man, Mario Hernandez, 37, of the 700 block of South Street, Elgin, was arrested four days after the traffic stop when he called authorities to report one of the men as “missing.”
Hernandez has pleaded guilty to cannabis trafficking and will be sentenced Tuesday. He faces a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years.