PHILA. INMATE SENTENCED FOR DEALING COKE FROM CELL

A man who admitted he set up cocaine sales from behind bars in a
Philadelphia jail was sentenced yesterday to two to four years in Bucks
County Prison.

Michael Diaz, 37, of Grant Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia, pleaded guilty
to drug charges last month and admitted he used a cell phone to arrange
cocaine transactions -- including one in Bensalem -- while he was an inmate
in Curran-Fromhold Prison.

Bucks County Court Judge Isaac S. Garb authorized Diaz yesterday to
participate in a work-release program.

Diaz was in prison on rape and kidnapping charges -- that have since been
reduced to simple assault by a Philadelphia judge -- when he was approached
by a man whom Deputy District Attorney Ellis B. Klein described as a
"confidential informant." Klein declined to identify the man.

Diaz told Garb yesterday that the man was a potential witness in his
assault trial who had called him in prison to say that he would appear in
court only if Diaz arranged for him to buy some cocaine. Diaz said he asked
fellow inmate Hector Castillo, 21, of North Philadelphia, for help.
Prosecutors said Castillo, in turn, arranged for William Pena, 31, of
Northeast Philadelphia, to deliver cocaine to the informant, once at strip
mall near Bustleton Avenue in Bensalem and at a Bensalem hotel.

When Bensalem police arrested him, the man whom authorities described as a
confidential informant agreed to help police gather evidence against the
others.

Garb sentenced the other two men to prison in February -- Castillo received
four to eight years, Pena seven to 14 years.

Besides arranging the transactions, prosecutors said, Diaz also destroyed
evidence -- the cellular phone that had been used to arrange the
transactions.