Todd South

Staff Writer, @tsouthjourno

A 38-year-old Bergenfield woman was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for her work as a courier for a drug trafficking organization based in Puerto Rico.

Sasha Melendez dabbed away tears as her attorney asked the judge to consider a lower sentence, saying the woman suffered from anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder that contributed to her work in the drug trade.

The mother of four was arrested in 2014 after agents with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Drug Enforcement Administration tracked packages she’d been receiving from Puerto Rico, one of which contained cocaine.

Postal Inspector Walley Wang said in court documents that beginning in July 2014 he and DEA agents identified Melendez as the recipient of parcels mailed from Puerto Rico to various addresses in North Jersey.

Multiple parcels contained cocaine. Agents intercepted a package in August 2014 and found 1.5 kilograms of cocaine inside. Melenedez contacted the post office inquiring that she hadn’t received the package.

Then, on March 25, 2015, federal agents tracked another package mailed to an address in Bergenfield, near where Melendez lived. Police followed Melendez, who arrived at the address where the package was delivered. The person at the home told the postal worker to leave the package at the doorstep because it was for a “neighbor.”

Police then watched as Melendez picked up the package and drove with it to a nearby vacant house. She put the package in the backyard, drove to her home and returned with a bag, put the package in the bag and went back home.

A short time later, a silver minivan arrived at her home with two men, Ramis Esteves and Noel A. Daneri Rodriguez. Melendez brought out a brown paper bag the men took and then drove away.

Police followed.

The men tried to evade police, according to court documents, and ditched the bag in an empty parking lot. Both men were arrested.

Inside the bag, police found two large brown envelopes with a total of two kilograms of cocaine, according to authorities.

Esteves pleaded guilty to drug charges and faces sentencing in February. Prosecutors dropped charges against Rodriguez.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Michael Peck told U.S. District Judge Claire Cecchi that before that incident and subsequent arrest there had been at least six other parcels sent to Melendez from Puerto Rico between October and December 2014.

He also said Melendez had asked co-workers at a medical billing office where she worked to accept packages addressed to her and bring them to her outside of the office.

Melendez's attorney, Stacey A. Van Malden, didn’t deny that her client had received illegal drugs, but said that it all started when she tried to help a high school friend named Angel who has since died.

Van Malden said Melendez couldn’t stop herself from continuing to receive the packages because she was fighting mental health issues. She said Melendez is a “suburban soccer mom” who perhaps made gas money from her role in taking the packages.

The defense attorney said Melendez experienced post-partum depression after the birth of her twins, now 4 years old, and refused to take medication for that and for what was later identified as an undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

“She refused to accept it and as a result she’s here for that,” Van Malden said. “She’s not a criminal, she did criminal things.”

But Peck said the way agents observed her hiding her behavior showed that Melendez knew what she was doing was wrong.

“We’re not saying she couldn’t think,” Van Malden said. “It’s the ability to control that behavior.”

But Cecchi wasn’t swayed, saying Melendez showed a, “consistent and calculated pattern of accepting these packages.”

Melendez told the judge that she “did something without thinking” and worried that her time in prison would destroy her family. Besides her twins, she also has an 11-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter set to graduate high school in June.

The incident was her first criminal conviction. She faced three to four years. Cecchi denied her attorney’s request for less time due to her mental illness and sentenced her to the bottom of the range she faced at three years, one month.

Melendez will be allowed to report to prison after her daughter’s graduation in June, but must remain on electronic monitoring until then.