NM man receives enhanced 7 ½-year federal prison sentence for heroin trafficking resulting in a death

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico man was sentenced Monday to 90 months in federal prison following his conviction for heroin trafficking which resulted in a death.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) conducted this investigation.

Allen Goossen, 30, of Farmington, New Mexico, must also serve three years of supervised release after he’s released from prison. Goossen was convicted for possessing 12 grams (0.4 ounces) of heroin. However, he received an enhanced sentence based on judicial findings that a significant sentence was required to protect the public from Goossen, as well as to promote deterrence.

During sentencing proceedings, the court found evidence that:

• Goossen caused the death of a 26-old-man by injecting him with heroin in November 2013,
• the victim’s death was a reasonably foreseeable effect of Goossen’s actions, and
• Goossen continued to distribute heroin even after the man he had injected had died.

Goossen has pleaded not guilty to related state charges arising out of this event; he is presumed innocent of those charges unless found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Goossen was arrested in February 2016 on a criminal complaint charging him with trafficking heroin in San Juan County, New Mexico. According to the complaint, Goossen sold about six grams of heroin to an undercover agent of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Region II Narcotics Taskforce on Dec. 17, 2014. 

The complaint further alleges that Jan. 5, 2015, Goossen possessed 5.95 grams of heroin packaged in six-single-gram packages when he was arrested on a felony arrest warrant. Goossen was subsequently indicted March 8, 2016.

He was charged with distribution of heroin Dec. 17, 2014, and with possession of heroin with intent to distribute Jan. 5, 2015. On April 15, 2016, Goossen pleaded guilty to both counts of the indictment without the benefit of a plea agreement.

The HIDTA Region II Task Force assisted with this case. The task force comprises officers and investigators from the following New Mexico agencies: Farmington, Bloomfield and Aztec police departments, and San Juan County Sheriff’s Office. It is part of the HIDTA program, which was created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. HIDTA is a program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which provides assistance to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States. It also seeks to reduce drug trafficking and production facilitating coordinated law enforcement activities and information sharing.