PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man who helped fly cocaine from California to Pittsburgh will spend 20 years in federal prison in a scheme that unraveled when he lost track of a carry-on bag containing more than 40 pounds of the drug.
Ruben Mitchell, of Stockton, Calif., was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.
Defense attorney William Kaczynski argued for a lesser sentence, saying Mitchell, 45, quit the drug business after he lost the bag on a Pittsburgh-bound flight in February 2009.
Investigators said a flight attendant put the bag in the plane's cargo hold because it wouldn't fit in an overhead luggage compartment.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross Lenhardt told the sentencing judge Mitchell "didn't quit, he was fired."
The bag was then mistakenly unloaded during a layover in Las Vegas, where the drugs were found.