Bergen Men Each Get 10 Years For Supplying Statewide Heroin Ring

Two Bergen County men were each sentenced to 10 years in state prison Friday for supplying heroin allegedly cut with fentanyl to a major drug ring that trafficked heroin from Paterson to Atlantic and Ocean counties.

Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury Jr. imposed the sentences on Richard Michilena, 27, of Elmwood Park and Bolivar Delacruz, 40, of Lodi after they pleaded guilty Feb. 13 to possession of heroin with intent to distribute, Attorney General Christopher Porrino announced.

DeLury and Delacruz were two of 19 people arrested in April 2015 after the Atlantic City Task Force learned that the drug ring was distributing about 30,000 doses of heroin a month in Atlantic and Ocean countries.

The task force seized 16,000 doses of heroin and $52,000. Ring members allegedly sold heroin cut with the deadly opiate fentanyl and had a juvenile sell heroin, Porrino said in a news release.

Members conducted heroin transactions in front of young children and took public assistance subsidies in exchange for heroin, the attorney general said.

Members of several Atlantic County-based law enforcement agencies and the State Police comprised the task force. Several South Jersey municipal police departments and federal law enforcement agencies, including the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, assisted with the investigation.

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Photos: Bolivar Delacruz, 40, of Lodi, left, and Richard Michilena, 27, of Elmwood Park/New Jersey Attorney General's Office