SLO County woman was a fugitive for 8 months in drug case. Now she’s going to prison

A Cambria woman will spend 17 years in a federal prison, after she had dodged her original drug-related sentencing for nearly eight months.

U. S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner handed down the 210-month sentence Feb. 7 for Chelsea McIntyre, 31.

After her original arrest three years ago by the Arroyo Grande Police Department and a subsequent joint investigation by the department and the FBI, a grand jury indicted McIntyre in April 2019.

The charge was knowingly and intentionally possessing with intent to distribute approximately 88.3 grams of methamphetamine, a Schedule II controlled substance.

McIntyre pleaded guilty to the charge in the indictment in February 2020 but didn’t show up for her sentencing. The investigation report states that, in early 2021, McIntyre removed her court-administered ankle monitor and failed to appear for her sentencing hearing.

She’d been a fugitive on the run ever since.

On Aug. 24, the FBI and the Bakersfield Police Department arrested McIntyre in Bakersfield.

The FBI’s Central Coast Safe Streets Task Force and the Arroyo Grande Police Department investigated the case against McIntyre, and the U.S. Attorney’s Central District Office prosecuted it.

Kathe Tanner

The Tribune

805-781-7904 (voicemails only)

Kathe Tanner has been writing about the people and places of SLO County’s North Coast since 1981, first as a columnist and then also as a reporter. Her career has included stints as a bakery owner, public relations director, radio host, trail guide and jewelry designer. She has been a resident of Cambria for more than four decades, and if it’s happening in town, Kathe knows about it.