Mom guilty of dealing pounds of meth from KCK home where children lived
A Kansas City, Kan., woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to running a methamphetamine trafficking business out of the home where she lived with her children.
Federal prosecutors said Karen Ortega’s children lived in the same house where officials served a search warrant, seizing about 20 pounds of methamphetamine, almost two pounds of heroin and about $230,000 in cash.
Ortega, 41, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a charge of conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with the with intent to distribute from a residence where someone under the age of 18 resided.
Besides the drugs and cash found in the search of her house in the 3000 block of North 34th Street, investigators recovered several firearms, according to court documents.
Law enforcement officials were investigating another woman for selling drugs when they learned that Ortega was supplying meth from Mexico to that woman, according to the documents.
Ortega was charged after investigators observed her selling about two pounds of the drug to another person in the parking lot of a Walmart store in Kansas City, Kan.
Sentencing for Ortega is scheduled for May 7. She faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.
