A Carson City man who has been connected to a number of serious crimes in the past several years will be tried for drug sales, a judge determined during an evidentiary hearing last week.
Fidel Fuentes was bound over by Justice of the Peace Robey Willis on a charge of trafficking in methamphetamine following a preliminary hearing on Friday.
He remains in custody on the charge and is being held without bail while immigrations and customs officers look at his status in the country.
Fuentes, 26, was jailed Sept. 22 after officers allegedly found methamphetamine in his pants pocket.
A self-proclaimed member of a notorious Carson City gang, Fuentes has been at the center of numerous criminal cases, but he has received probation with each arrest.
Court records indicate he has a lengthy criminal record dating back to 2003. He allegedly kidnapped and battered his girlfriend, then he attacked a married couple inside their home after they tried to help the girl " a stranger to them.
Kidnapping and domestic battery charges were dismissed, and Fuentes pleaded to burglary, for which he received three years' probation.
He also was the catalyst in the fatal shooting of his friend Juan Carlos Alegria, 23, in May 2004 after Fuentes broke into his estranged girlfriend's home, and her new paramour shot at him, fatally wounding Alegria and injuring Fuentes.
After the shooter's conviction of murder, home invasion charges filed against Fuentes were later dismissed.
Most recently, Fuentes was the passenger in a car driven by Robby Hernandez, in which Hernandez led two Washoe Tribal police officers on a high-speed chase that ended when Hernandez rammed a police cruiser, seriously injuring a tribal officer.
Hernandez, the stepson of Carson City Mayor Marv Teixeira, pleaded guilty to eluding a peace officer and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Fuentes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess stolen property and sentenced in October 2007 to a year in Douglas County Jail. He was released from custody on June 16 with good-time credit.
Fuentes will be arraigned on the trafficking charge on Oct. 28.
- Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnor
ton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.