Dayton’s ‘El Chapo Jr.’ sentenced to lengthy prison term

Daniel “El Chapo Jr.” Jones, who bragged about being Dayton’s biggest drug dealer and tried to burn fentanyl during a Facebook live video while in an hours-long standoff with law enforcement, was sentenced Thursday in federal court.

Jones, who turns 30 on Sunday, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Walter Rice to 12 years in federal prison and 100 hours of community service or job training. Rice said the sentence would be served consecutively to any given in pending cases in Vinton and Butler counties. Jones has been incarcerated for about 21 months.

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Rice noted Jones — whom he called a danger to society — now has 16 felony convictions with more pending, and had 56 violations while in state custody. Rice said Jones was found with marijuana in his rectum and has a misdemeanor assault case, both from his activity in Montgomery County Jail.

Rice said he believes Jones’ sincerity about changing his life, but that the defendant “totally lacks tools and ability to carry those promises into reality.”

Before his sentence was announced in Dayton’s U.S. District Court, Jones told Rice that he took full responsibility for his actions. Jones apologized to his friends and family — many of whom wrote letters of support on his behalf — and said he’d like to be around to help raise his infant daughter.

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“I’m not glorifying or excusing my behavior,” Jones said, who wrote in a letter to Rice that he isn’t the man police and media have made him out to be. “But I don’t need a decade or two to realize what I did was horribly wrong.”

Jones pleaded guilty in April 2017 to two of four indicted counts in exchange for the dismissal of two counts. Jones pleaded guilty to trafficking fentanyl and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

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Prosecutors removed language from the second count that said Jones had more than 400 grams of fentanyl so that there was no minimum mandatory sentence.

Court documents said Jones posted a live Facebook feed of him next to a fire in a bathroom and saying, “No evidence on me buddy.”

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