The former owner of a historic downtown Bend theater has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in a marijuana smuggling operation, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Nov. 19.

David R. Mendoza, 45, owned the Liberty Theater at 849 N.W. Wall St., one of four properties the federal government said he purchased with funds he earned by smuggling thousands of pounds of marijuana into the U.S. across the Canadian border. Proceeds from the sale of the theater and a home in Deer Park, along with properties in Tacoma and Bellevue, all in Washington, were surrendered to the government in a preliminary order of forfeiture filed Nov. 19 in District Court.

Mendoza pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to import more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana in June. That’s equivalent to about 2,200 pounds. According to his plea agreement, Mendoza smuggled marijuana into the U.S. from Canada between 2001 and 2006, by helicopter and over land.

Many times it was packaged in hockey bags, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum. One 400-pound shipment sent across the border at Blaine, Wash., was hidden in a load of lumber. Authorities seized more than a ton of marijuana imported by Mendoza.

In 2002, Mendoza purchased the Liberty Theater building for $745,000, according to Deschutes County property records.

Bend’s second movie theater, the Liberty Theater was built in 1917 and could seat 500 people. In 1941, less than a year after the opening of the nearby Tower Theatre, the Liberty Theater shut down.

By the early 1950s it had been converted to office space, and in the late 1990s it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Between 2002 and 2006, Mendoza and a business partner renovated the building to create ground-floor retail space and condominiums on the upper floors, according to Bulletin archives, a plan that was never completed.

Mendoza initially eluded federal authorities, but was extradited from Spain in 2008.

The building was purchased in July by a Redmond company for $1.45 million, which was $50,000 below a $1.5 million bid the federal government rejected in a public auction in June 2008, according to Bulletin archives.

One year earlier, a deal to sell the theater to two Central Oregon businessmen for $3.5 million fell through.

Mendoza is currently listed as an inmate at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Wash. He will be subject to five years of supervised release following his prison term.