November 06, 2024
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Man gets 76 months in prison after yearlong cocaine probe

BANGOR – A Florida man was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court to more than six years in prison on drug charges.

Pedro Julio Rosario, also known as Justino Soto, 49, of Groveland Park, Fla., was sentenced to 76 months in prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

He also was sentenced to five years of supervised release after he completes his term but is expected to be deported as soon as he’s out of prison. Rosario’s country of origin was not listed in court documents.

Rosario, who pleaded guilty to the charge in March, and Roberto Rodriguez, 23, of Central Falls, R.I., were arrested in September 2007 in Brewer after they were caught with nearly 41/2 pounds of “cocaine base” in an undercover buy set up by a cooperating defendant.

Police said at the time of the arrests that the cocaine base, also called crack cocaine, had a street value of more than $200,000. The arrests were the result of a 12-month investigation that culminated on Sept. 21, 2007, when Brewer police officers and federal drug enforcement and immigration agents stormed a Wilson Street parking lot with guns drawn, according to a story previously published in the Bangor Daily News.

Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, who was in the country legally, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release in August.

Both men faced up to 40 years in federal prison and fines of up to $2 million.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

990-8207


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