A U.S. District Court judge sentenced a New London man to four years in prison for selling cocaine and for violating federal supervised release conditions after a previous cocaine trafficking conviction.

Juan Hernandez, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced Wednesday afternoon. His four-year sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.

New London police charged Hernandez on Jan. 17, 2019, after stopping his vehicle and finding him in possession of about 100 grams of cocaine, the news release said. At the time, he was on federal supervised release after Bryant had sentenced him Feb. 26, 2016, to four years in prison for his role in another drug trafficking operation in the region.

In March of 2019, a Hartford grand jury charged Hernandez and 23 others with different offenses. In December of the same year, Hernandez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute cocaine.

Hernandez’s conviction was borne from a multi-agency investigation, which included the Drug Enforcement Administration, Connecticut Statewide Narcotics Taskforce East, Connecticut Department of Correction and the New London, Waterford, City of Groton and Stonington police departments, “into the distribution of narcotics and illegal possession of firearms in southeastern Connecticut,” the release states. The effort is part of a federal indictment of 24 people — including two local restaurant owners — in a southeastern Connecticut drug trafficking ring that allegedly involved money laundering through a New London pizza restaurant.

s.spinella@theday.com