A 20-year-old Zuni Pueblo woman has pleaded guilty to a five-count indictment charging her with narcotics trafficking on pueblo land in February 2010, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says.
Alexandria Lee Tsalabutie, who entered her guilty plea last week in federal court in Albuquerque, faces from one to 40 years in prison when she is sentenced, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. A date for her sentencing hearing was not immediately set.
Tsalabutie, who is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Zuni, has been in federal custody since her arrest on Sept. 21, 2010, and will remain in custody pending the sentencing hearing, the news release said.
The charges she pleaded guilty to were two counts of cocaine distribution, one count of using a telephone to facilitate a drug trafficking crime, one count of distribution of cocaine in or near a school or college (the Zuni campus of the University of New Mexico) and one count of distributing cocaine in or near a public housing facility (Tsalabutie’s residence which is owned by the Zuni Native Housing Authority), according to the news release.
