A 26-year-old man with a four-year college
degree has pleaded guilty to organizing a drug-trafficking ring
that supplied heroin, cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy across North
Dakota and Minnesota.
Noah Bergland, of East Grand Forks, Minn., faces up to 20 years
in federal prison. The plea agreement calls for him to forfeit
$250,000 in drug sale proceeds.
Prosecutors say the drugs were picked up in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area and elsewhere and sold to distributors and customers in
the North Dakota cities of Fargo, Grand Forks and Williston and the
Minnesota cities of Alexandria and Thief River Falls.
Bergland pleaded guilty to money laundering and continuing
criminal enterprise.
The criminal enterprise charge can carry a mandatory life prison
sentence. Prosecutors say the quantity of drugs in question doesn't
meet that standard.
