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A 25-year-old man who helped kidnap a man from Washington and later assisted in dumping his dead body on a rural road in Oregon was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in federal prison.

Fernando Cruz-Lerma, who prosecutors say was connected to the violent Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

Cruz-Lerma admitted he brought Ricardo Corral-Moreno, 27, of Olympia, to Oregon and helped dump his body after he was killed. Cruz-Lerma also conspired with others to sell methamphetamine in Portland, along the Oregon coast and in Washington, prosecutors said.

But there was no physical evidence that tied him to the killing, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Narus said.

He’s the second man sentenced in connection with the April 2019 kidnapping and killing of Corral-Moreno, who prosecutors say owed about $90,000 to the Sinaloa drug cartel headed by infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, now serving a life sentence.

Corral-Moreno died of blunt force injuries to the head and also sustained facial abrasions and contusions to his arms, hands, legs and feet. Ligature marks on his wrists showed he’d been restrained, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut accepted the sentence recommended by both the prosecution and defense.

Immergut was bound under the plea agreement to accept the negotiated prison term, but she said in general that she found it reasonable, considering Cruz-Lerma’s age – 18 – at the time of the crime, his lack of a prior criminal history and no physical evidence tying him to the actual killing.

“I do think it’s a very good deal for Cruz-Lerma,” Immergut said, adding that she likely would have issued a lengthier term.

Corral-Moreno’s mother, sister and daughter condemned Cruz-Lerma’s role in the death of their family member and urged the judge to at least double the proposed sentence. Corral-Moreno’s daughter said she was nine years old when her father was killed. She said she still wakes up every day thinking about her father, who “made me feel like I was the most important person in the world.”

The names of the victim’s family members were withheld in court to protect them. Family members had faced extortion threats before Corral-Moreno’s killing, prosecutors said.

Cruz-Lerma drove Corral-Moreno from Aberdeen, Wash., to a Woodburn apartment in April 2019. Corral-Moreno was then taken to a ranch in Molalla used as a drug stash location. There, Corral-Moreno was restrained from April 10 to April 13, 2019, brutally beaten to death and then loaded into a horse trailer, prosecutors said.

A pole camera placed by law enforcement officers at the ranch caught footage of a truck pulling a horse trailer leaving the property about 12:35 a.m. on April 14, 2019.

Corral-Moreno’s body was found 15 minutes later by a passerby in the middle of South Liberal Way Road, about 11 miles from the ranch, according to investigators. Corral-Moreno’s blood also was found on a rubber floor mat in the horse trailer from the ranch.

Another man who was involved in the killing and dumped the body, Marcos Alonso Castillo-Bernal, now 51, was sentenced in 2023 to 26 years in prison for conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, conspiracy to possess drugs with intent to distribute and for illegally re-entering the United States twice following prior removals.

Castillo-Bernal’s DNA was found on Moreno’s left cheek below his eye and left ankle. None of Cruz-Lerma’s DNA was found on the victim.

“I dead and my family to (sic) if i dont pay,” Corral-Moreno wrote in a text message to an associate days before he was kidnapped, according to court records.

Cruz-Lerma left the United States about six weeks after the murder, flying home to Mexico in June 2019, according to his defense lawyer, Benjamin T. Andersen.

Back in Mexico, Cruz-Lerma drank heavily and occasionally used cocaine and methamphetamine, his lawyer said. He ultimately established a stable relationship with a woman and held several jobs, including at a family cleaning business, a car wash and a restaurant. He completed a year of college but dropped out due to financial constraints. During a trip in June 2023 to Calgary, Canada, for a relative’s birthday, he was arrested at the airport on a U.S. arrest warrant.

While in custody in Canada, he learned to speak English and worked as a janitor. While at the federal prison in Sheridan awaiting sentencing, he has worked as a head cook in the kitchen, according to Andersen. The lawyer urged the judge to consider his client’s efforts to improve himself as mitigating factors when sentencing him.

“I’m really sorry for everything that happened,” Cruz-Lerma told the judge and the victim’s family in court. “I was a kid. I wasn’t in control of many of the situations that were happening. … I’m sorry for all the damage that I have caused.”