Dealer’s Use of Home as ‘Stash House’ Merits Tougher Sentence

A drug dealer who stored the narcotics he distributed in the apartment he shared with his children was properly given a sentence enhancement for maintaining a “stash house,” the First Circuit said Monday on an issue of first impression.

Andy Melendez-Rosado said that he wasn’t eligible for the bump under the US Sentencing Guidelines because the apartment was his home and not “maintained” for distributing controlled substances as required by the applicable guideline.

The enhancement was properly applied to Melendez-Rosado because an application note to the guideline said that storing drugs need only be “one of the defendant’s primary or ...