Man gets 10 years in prison, sold meth outside Tucson malls

TUCSON, Ariz. - A man has been sentenced to a decade in prison for selling nearly $8,000 worth of methamphetamine in the parking lots of Tucson-area shopping malls last year.

State prosecutors say 40-year-old Jesus Gabriel Rodriguez-Valenzuela pleaded guilty to all eight charges against him, which included transportation of a dangerous drug for sale, money laundering, conspiracy and illegally conducting an enterprise.

Rodriguez-Valenzuela was accused of supplying one pound of methamphetamine to a Tucson-area drug dealer on three separate occasions between February and March 2018.

Authorities say those drugs were then sold by the drug dealer to undercover officers from the Tucson Police Department’s Counter Narcotics Alliance for $2,600 per pound.

They say Rodriguez-Valenzuela altogether supplied three pounds of methamphetamine that had a value of $7,800.