Nobody can say that San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Cindy De Silva is “soft” on drugs.

The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office praised De Silva’s recent announcement as the California Narcotics Officers’ Association “Prosecutor of the Year” award – recognizing the prosecutor currently assigned to the County Metro Narcotics Task Force cases for her tireless work to keep the community safe.

“I’m so very proud of Deputy District Attorney Cindy De Silva and her incredible dedication to the successful prosecution of narcotics cases,” said District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar in a release. “Cindy is an excellent representative of the Office and I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this high honor.”

De Silva has been a prosecutor for the DA’s office for over two decades and has been training law enforcement and other prosecutors since 2008 – bringing them up to speed on things like search warrants, warrantless search and seizure laws, and other legal anchors essential for modern law enforcement.

Prior to her work with the Metro Narcotics Task Force De Silva served as the juvenile court’s gang and gun prosecutor. She was also the recipient of the Stockton “Crime Stopper of the Year” award in 2009, and was honored by the District Attorney’s Association statewide in 2016 as the “Instructor of the Year.”

While narcotics have always been an issue, law enforcement has been on high alert with the massive influx of fentanyl and fentanyl-laced drugs to San Joaquin County streets.

Just last month a San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office K9 found thousands of illegal fentanyl pills stashed in hair gen containers during a traffic stop in Ripon. And last week the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office announced it would be pursuing murder charges against a Lockeford man who sold fentanyl to a woman that overdosed in a motel on the Stockton-Lodi border back in April.

The fentanyl epidemic – people are buying what they think are commonly diverted pharmaceutical pills like oxycodone or Xanax but are instead getting pills containing the much stronger and deadlier synthetic opioid fentanyl – has prompted county health officials to make overdose-reversing medication naloxone available to the general public.

To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.