Joe Galavan JR Sentenced for Drug and Firearm Crimes

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An Anchorage man was sentenced to over six years in prison for possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute and possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

According to court documents, Jose Galvan Jr., 49, was a passenger in a vehicle involved in a traffic stop on Feb. 12, 2022. The driver of the vehicle told the officer that he did not have a valid driver’s license and was recently released from jail. During the traffic stop, officers discovered Galvan had two concealed firearms on his person, and three additional firearms and drug paraphernalia in a backpack.

When officers discovered the concealed firearms, they detained Galvan in a patrol car. While in the patrol car, the defendant ripped open a Ziploc bag of fentanyl that he had concealed on his person, spreading the powder over the seats. Galvan was removed from the vehicle and transferred to a hospital after officers observed the defendant experiencing what they believed to be overdose symptoms from fentanyl exposure.

Further investigation revealed that Galvan intended to sell the fentanyl and carried the firearms for protection while he trafficked drugs.

Court documents also lay out the defendant’s history of violence starting 26 years ago when he used a shotgun to rob a victim. Galvan has committed multiple violent felonies, including robbery, a shooting connected to drug trafficking, possessing firearms as a felon and the assault of a woman that he strangled until she lost consciousness. The court cited these violent actions when the sentence was delivered, stating that the defendant was well attuned to the danger of possessing firearms during drugs crimes since the defendant’s previous conviction was a drug crime that resulted in a shooting, where the defendant himself was shot multiple times.

The defendant pled guilty on March 10, 2023. Galvan will also serve five years’ supervised release as part of his sentence.

“Mr. Galvan’s actions in 2022 continued his long history of violence and added to his time behind bars for this crime,” said U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska. “Violence has no place in our communities. My office will continue to remain vigilant and work with our law enforcement partners to prosecute habitual violent offenders who create problems in our cities and villages, and work to ensure they receive sentences commensurate with their history of violence.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Seattle Field Division and Anchorage Police Department investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Vandergaw prosecuted the case.

This case was part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement, and the local community to develop effective, locally based strategies to reduce violent crime.