DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO<\/p>\n
The son of a former Colombian paramilitary drug-cartel kingpin was sentenced Friday in San Diego federal court to four years and three months in prison for an international cocaine trafficking conspiracy.<\/p>\n
Sebastian Meneses Toro, 26, was extradited from Colombia to San Diego in June 2024, two years after federal prosecutors in San Diego secured a three-count indictment against him. Colombian national police reportedly arrested Meneses in August 2022, two months after he was indicted, at an international airport in the Colombian capitol of Bogot\u00e1.<\/p>\n
Meneses pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment in March.<\/p>\n
He is the son of Daniel \u201cDon Mario\u201d Rendon Herrera, who is serving a 35-year sentence<\/a> in a federal prison in Texas. Federal prosecutors in New York said that before Rendon\u2019s arrest in 2009, he was the leader of the Clan del Golfo, a violent transnational drug-trafficking organization that evolved from a paramilitary group. Rendon pleaded guilty to a charge related to leading that group and also admitted that he conspired to provide material support to its paramilitary wing, which the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization.<\/p>\n Few specifics about Meneses\u2019 case have emerged in court documents or were discussed Friday in court. He admitted in his plea agreement that beginning in at least 2019, he conspired to traffic cocaine totaling more than 450 kilograms \u2014 or nearly 1,000 pounds \u2014 from Colombia to Mexico and Costa Rica, with the purpose of bringing it into the U.S.<\/p>\n Specifically, Meneses admitted that he distributed more than 440 pounds of cocaine in March 2019 and nearly 380 pounds in November 2019.<\/p>\n At the time of his extradition, Latin American news outlets reported that Meneses was both the youngest drug trafficker ever extradited<\/a> from Colombia to the U.S., and that his extradition marked the first time ever a father and son had been extradited<\/a> from Colombia to the U.S. on similar charges.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear exactly how Meneses followed his father into the world of drug trafficking, given that he was about 10 years old when his father was arrested. The criminal activity that Meneses pleaded guilty to started about a decade after his father\u2019s arrest and about a year after his father was extradited to the U.S.<\/p>\n His attorney declined to comment after Friday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n In court, defense attorney Matthew Lombard told the judge that Meneses\u2019 mother is a psychologist in Colombia, that she tried to keep him away from his father\u2019s bad influence and that his mother and father are \u201con opposite ends of the spectrum.\u201d Lombard said Meneses has a loving and\u00a0supportive\u00a0family \u2014 four family members were in court Friday \u2014 and that he\u2019s learned his lesson and won\u2019t return to the drug world.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not even 1% of the person who entered prison a few years ago,\u201d Meneses told the judge through a Spanish interpreter. He apologized to his family and to society for the harm he caused.<\/p>\n