OAKLAND \u2014 A man who sold a laundry list of drugs from his Oakland home has been sentenced to seven years in prison, meaning he\u2019ll likely be incarcerated for the drug offenses into his early 70s, court records show.<\/p>\n
Donald Young, 64, was sentenced on Feb. 19 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers after he pleaded guilty to cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl trafficking, and to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Prosecutors describe Young as a convict 10 times over, a \u201cprolific\u201d drug dealer and an \u201cunrepentant and serial offender, one who cannot play by the rules.\u201d His lawyer describes him as a family man who grow up in poverty and now suffers from \u201cserious health issues,\u201d including being at high risk for a heart attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis life expectancy is shortened,\u201d a defense sentencing memo says. \u201cMr. Young\u2019s goal is to serve his time in prison and spend his final days at home with his family before he passes away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young was charged in 2025 as part of a large scale drug investigation that started by looking into a Mexican drug cartel and followed the supply chain north, eventually reaching the Bay Area and lower-level drug dealers like Young. Authorities used a wiretap probe and a confidential informant, who bought fentanyl pills, methamphetamine, and firearms from Young, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
One of Young\u2019s co-defendants, Jerardo Mendez Zaragoza, was sentenced in February to eight months in prison he had already served. Charges are pending against two others.<\/p>\n
Zaragoza\u2019s lawyer said he was wrongly suspected of being a \u201cbulk supplier\u201d because he traveled to Mexico frequently, but drug agents soon learned he was going there \u201cfor family and a girlfriend, and turned out to be a relatively small time supplier to Mr. Young on a local level.\u201d Prosecutors joined in recommending the sentence of time served, court records show.<\/p>\n
Young\u2019s lawyer said in court filings that he \u201cgrew up as one of nine children in an impoverished Black family in Oakland during the 1960s and 70s, a time of great political and social upheaval.\u201d He endured traumatic incidents, like when the family home was shot up in Oakland in the mid 1980s, the defense sentencing memo says.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Young has not led a perfect life. This will not be his first time in prison, and Mr. Young fully accepts his crimes and responsibility for them,\u201d the memo says.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors credited Young for quickly pleading guilty, but added his, \u201crelentless recidivism\u201d is both dispiriting and appalling\u201d and said he was selling drugs by the pound when federal agents investigated him last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has undoubtedly contributed to a significant degree to the devastating drug crisis plaguing the Bay Area,\u201d prosecutors said in court filings. \u201cYoung was no casual seller of narcotics; rather, he and his co-conspirators understood very well the timing and mechanics of the drug-supply chain, working to ensure that they had enough money to secure shipments when they came in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 A man who sold a laundry list of drugs from his Oakland home has been sentenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[861,862,105615,105613,105614,105616,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-233050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area-crime","tag-california-crime","tag-cokeland","tag-oakland-cocaine","tag-oakland-coke","tag-oakland-drug-dealer","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}