Left: Deanna Gerads booking photo Stearns County Jail 2018. Right: Alkaloid substance as cocaine white powder lines with euro notes is seen in this photo illustration (Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via AP). Inset: This Feb. 22, 2014 file photo shows Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, being escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture in the beach resort town of Mazatlan. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
Sourcing cocaine and methamphetamine from the Mexican Sinaloa cartel led by notorious imprisoned leader Juan “El Chapo” Guzman for buyers on America’s Midwestern plains and prairies, a Minnesota woman has pleaded guilty in federal court in Fargo, North Dakota, this week to her role in the sprawling conspiracy involving dozens of Minnesotans.
Deanna Gerads, of Freeport, is the latest person to change her plea in a federal indictment first brought in 2022 against a network of alleged drug traffickers who came under surveillance as the Justice Department pursued Operation Unfinished Business II, according to a Justice Department news release. The program is aimed at taking down international drug traffickers who push meth, cocaine and fentanyl specifically.
Gerads was on the run in Mexico for more than a year before she was extradited to Texas and arrested, court records show. In a third superseding indictment filed in November 2022, prosecutors charged her and 11 others with possession and intent to distribute more than 500 grams of methamphetamines, over 5 kilograms — or more than 11 pounds — of cocaine and over 400 grams of fentanyl.
Though she initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, the 34-year-old woman changed her plea on March 26 before Chief U.S. District Judge Peter Welte, an appointee of former President Donald Trump. The plea came a little more than a week before she was expected to face a jury trial on April 9. Gerads is currently detained at the Cass County Jail and is expected to be sentenced by Welte on July 2, the federal docket in Minnesota shows.
She faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
Gerads was not a leader of the conspiracy according to prosecutors, but a trafficker lower on the rung who reported to boss Macalla Knott, also known as Kayla Knott.
Knott pleaded guilty last March to a number of offenses including conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, money laundering and more and admitted that she had been living in Mexico since March 2020 and directed shipments of the drugs to flow across Minnesota and the Midwest including Nebraska and Wisconsin.
The conspiracy included Knott’s father, Jeffrey Robert Knott. He pleaded guilty as well and is expected to be sentenced next month.
Kayla Knott’s sentencing has been delayed at least once, the docket shows. She is looking at a possible 15 year sentence. She was meant to be sentenced this month but will now face a judge in August.
An attorney for Gerads did not immediately return a request for comment.
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