BANGOR – A federal judge Friday sentenced a former altar boy from Puerto Rico to nearly five years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine in northern Maine.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock sentenced an emotional Roberto Rodriguez, 23, of Central Falls, R.I., to 57 months in federal prison. The judge also sentenced him to three years of supervised release after he completes his prison term.

“It seems to me very clear that you got yourself in way over your head when became involved with some very rough characters,” Woodcock told the defendant in imposing the sentence. “They were bad enough to make you worry that harm might come to your 5-year-old son. Mr. Rodriguez, you don’t need friends like these.”

Rodriguez was born and raised in Puerto Rico and attended Catholic schools until he dropped out in his senior year about the time his son was born. He and the boy’s mother apparently were married briefly before Rodriguez went to the Philadelphia area about two years ago. After working at the Mohegan Sun briefly in 2007, he moved to Providence where he worked odd jobs and fell in with drug dealers.

Rodriguez’s mother, Maria Rodriguez, who is an operating room nurse at a hospital in Puerto Rico, wept as she addressed the court in Spanish. Joanne Lopez, Rodriguez’s girlfriend from Rhode Island, translated for her. The older woman said that Roberto Rodriguez was her only son, and that she been a widow for “one year and 11 months.”

“Like every responsible parent,” she told the judge, “I created stability for my child and gave him a good education. … Now, the only thing left is a very small piece of my heart.”

Rodriguez’s mother, who lives with her grandson and his mother so she “will not be alone,” asked Woodcock to remember in sentencing her son that “we are all human.”

“I want to say that I made a mistake and I will never commit it again,” Rodriguez told the judge through a court-appointed interpreter. “It’s affected me and my family. I don’t want to suffer anymore. I’m asking you to forgive me.”

Under the federal sentencing guidelines, Rodriguez faced a minimum of 10 years in federal prison. The recommended sentence was reduced to between 57 and 71 months because Rodriguez: had no criminal history; pleaded guilty rather than going to trial; and played a limited role in the conspiracy that did not involve weapons or violence.

He also faced paying a fine of between $10,000 and $4 million. Woodcock did not impose a fine.

Rodriguez was arrested on Sept. 17 in Brewer with Pedro Julio Rosario, also known as Justin Soto, 47, of Providence, R.I., by agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on a controlled buy set up by a cooperating defendant.

Rodriguez drove a Dodge Durango with Rhode Island plates to Brewer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Casey, who prosecuted the case, told the judge. Rosario set up the deal with the informant to buy 2 kilograms of crack cocaine.

Both men were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to distribute cocaine base, also called crack. Rosario, who has been held without bail pending the outcome of his case, pleaded guilty to the charge in March. Rodriguez followed suit in May.

Rodriguez was released on bail but was rearrested in March in Rhode Island on a bail violation after he refused to voluntarily submit to treatment for mental health problems. The time he has been held in jail since then will be applied to his sentence.

Rosario is facing a minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison because of a prior felony drug conviction. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 30 in federal court in Bangor.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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